1 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BEFORE THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

In the Matter of

1-800 Contacts, Inc., 

 a corporation, 

Respondent

Docket No. 9372 Public Record Version

DISSENTING STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER NOAH JOSHUA PHILLIPS

The majority’s decision in this case deems “inherently suspect” and then condemns 

agreements to settle legitimate trademark infringement litigation. Applicable precedent requires 

the more thorough rule of reason analysis, with more credence given to the intellectual property

at the heart of the case. The majority make a separate holding that the settlements are 

anticompetitive based on a showing of direct effects, but the evidence upon which they rely fails, 

both as a matter of law and as a matter of fact, to meet the legal requirement that such effects 

must be actual, sustained, and significant or substantial. I fear the majority’s approach will foster 

uncertainty and undermine trademark policy, and so I respectfully dissent. 

Neither the necessary judicial experience nor economic learning exist to apply a truncated 

antitrust analysis to the facts of this case. A fair reading of relevant case law makes clear that the 

full rule of reason should apply to the trademark settlement agreements between 1-800 Contacts 

and thirteen alleged trademark infringers (the “Trademark Settlements”).1

 In supporting their 

choice of analytical framework, the majority avoid entirely the fact that the agreements at issue 

settle intellectual property claims. They then judge and discard entirely the value of those claims, 

a methodological error with a result that judicial experience and economic learning have taught 

us for decades to avoid—i.e., an unclear rule that is difficult to administer and harder still to 

predict, and that may capture and will chill procompetitive behavior. 

The majority couch their holding as a limited one dealing with restraints on the 

opportunity to make price comparisons—an overstated conclusion—but their decision not to 

 

1 I use the phrase “Trademark Settlements” to refer to the agreements settling trademark infringement litigation 

between 1-800 Contacts and the following thirteen contact lens retailers: (1) AC Lens, (2) Coastal Contacts, 

(3) Contact Lens King, (4) Empire Vision, (5) EZ Contacts, (6) Lenses for Less, (7) Lensfast, (8) Memorial Eye, 

(9) Standard Optical, (10) Tram Data, (11) Vision Direct, (12) Walgreens, and (13) Web Eye Care. The phrase 

“Trademark Settlements” does not include the sourcing and services agreement between 1-800 Contacts and 

Luxottica (the “Luxottica Agreement”) because that agreement did not resolve trademark infringement litigation 

and, therefore, should be analyzed separately. See Section III, infra. 
2

grapple fairly with the trademark context of the agreements results in a rule that appears to be 

one of the following:

• all advertising restrictions are inherently suspect, regardless whether they protect

intellectual property rights, a rule supported by the logic of the opinion but which 

the majority disclaim expressly; or

• a standard of review under which the Commission will review as inherently 

suspect settlements of what it considers weak trademark infringement claims, 

leaving open the question of how it will analyze infringement claims that the 

Commission adjudges to be strong.

The former rule will treat clearly pro-competitive conduct as presumptively unlawful. The latter 

will require the Commission and federal courts to litigate (or re-litigate) inherently fact-specific 

intellectual property infringement claims in every antitrust challenge to a settlement agreement, a 

difficult process we have long eschewed. It will also create uncertainty for parties considering 

settlement, deterring enforcement and, in the case of trademarks, reducing the incentive to build 

brands.

Precedent offers—indeed, requires—a better approach: apply the full rule of reason to 

antitrust challenges to trademark settlement agreements like those at issue here, giving 

appropriate credence to the fact that the conduct at issue is the settlement of legitimate (i.e., nonsham) trademark infringement claims. Such a rule would provide guidance to the market, 

increase certainty, encourage brand investment, and enhance competition.

I. Background

Jonathan Coon started the business that would become 1-800 Contacts in 1992 from his 

college dormitory room with just $50 to his name, seeking to reduce prices, improve service, and 

provide a better customer experience for contact lens consumers. IDF 30-33, 43;

2 Coon, Tr. 

2649:9-12, 2651:12-20. Over the next 26 years he would succeed, building a company (and a 

brand) from essentially nothing to one of the largest contact lens retailers in the country, while 

introducing American consumers to mail-order contact lenses (and later ordering contacts 

online), driving down prices, and attracting competition from small and large companies alike.

That growth required a combination of a massive investment in advertising and a constant quest 

to improve the customer experience. That is the type of conduct that antitrust and trademark law

should, and do, encourage.

 2 For the sake of convenience and consistency, I use the same abbreviations as the majority for the following 

documents:

Compl.: Complaint

ID: Initial Decision

IDF: Initial Decision Finding of Fact

Stip.: Joint Stipulation Regarding Search Engine Mechanics and Glossary of Terms

RAB: Respondent’s Brief on Appeal

I also use the following abbreviations in citations:

Op.: Opinion of the Commission

IH: Investigational Hearing
3 

A. 1-800 Contacts Invested a Tremendous Amount to Build Its Brand.

Trademarks encourage innovation and brand investment, giving more information to 

customers and attracting competition. See Section II(A)(4)(b), infra. 1-800 Contacts has a long 

history of taking risks to invest in its brand. In July 1995, when Mr. Coon and his business 

partner John Nichols renamed their company 1-800 Contacts and obtained the associated 

telephone number, the company’s sales more than doubled in the first month. IDF 36-37; Coon, 

Tr. 2654:13-19, 2658:19-25, 2661:20-2662:16. It cost Mr. Coon and Mr. Nichols approximately 

$163,500 to obtain the telephone number “1-800-CONTACTS”, but they only had $10,000 in the 

bank at the time, so they used that entire sum to make an upfront payment and agreed to pay the 

remainder in monthly installments of approximately 10% of the company’s total monthly

revenue. Coon, Tr. 2658:19-2660:25. 

After it started marketing itself as 1-800 Contacts, the company saw an increase of 20% 

to 25% in customer acquisition and retention. IDF 51. The initial advertising campaign was in 

print, but shortly thereafter the company started advertising on television. IDF 50, 52. Television 

advertising had an immediate and significant impact, growing the business by approximately 

50% in just a few months. IDF 53. Ever since, television has generally been the largest category 

of marketing spend in 1-800 Contacts’ advertising budget. See RX0739 (Murphy Expert Report) 

at 092. 

1-800 Contacts’ approach to promoting itself was—and continues to be—designed to 

generate brand awareness and new orders through “a multichannel integrated marketing” 

strategy. IDF 60-61. This strategy has included “print advertising, television advertising, radio 

advertising, internet display advertising, affiliate marketing, social media advertising, and search 

engine optimization, in addition to internet search advertising.” IDF 62. 

Of particular relevance to this case, there is a positive correlation between 1-800 

Contacts’ television advertisements and traffic to 1-800 Contacts’ website via searches for its 

trademarked terms. IDF 63; CX9017 at 045 (Blackwood Dep. 176:2-12); CX9032 at 063 

(L. Schmidt Dep. 246:25-247:13); RX0736 (Goodstein Expert Report) at 008; see also CX9031 

at 025-026 (C. Schmidt Dep. 95:25-97:15) (testifying that 1-800 Contacts saw an increase in the 

amount of paid search advertising on its trademarked terms in response to broad scale 

advertising, such as television and radio). Research conducted by 1-800 Contacts found that 40 

percent of the traffic to its website from paid trademark search was directly related to television 

advertising. CX9017 at 059 (Blackwood Dep. 230:1-23). 

1-800 Contacts has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to generate brand awareness and 

new orders. From 2002 to 2014 (just 13 of the 26 years the company has existed), 1-800 

Contacts spent more than on advertising, of which (or more than 

%) went to television advertising and almost (or %) to all internet 

advertising (not just paid search advertising). IDF 64-65; RX0739 (Murphy Expert Report) at 

092. In 2014 alone (the most recent year for which data is available), 1-800 Contacts’ marketing 

budget was ; (or %) of that total budget went to television 

advertising and (or %) to all internet advertising (not just paid search 

advertising). IDF 64-66; RX0739 (Murphy Expert Report) at 092. As these numbers show, 

television is 1-800 Contacts’ principal means of advertising because it drives growth in terms of 
4 

brand awareness and identifying and finding customers. See CX9001 at 016-017 (Bethers IH 

60:15-61:3). Other online contact lens retailers generally have not invested in broad scale (e.g., 

television) advertising. CX9029 at 004 (Bethers Dep. 10:3-11:13); CX9035 at 023 (Coon Dep.

88:2-6); RX0736 (Goodstein Expert Report) at 009; see also Bethers, Tr. 3614:15-24 (“[W]e 

don’t see anyone that invests in broad-scale advertising like us [1-800 Contacts]”). 

Paid internet search advertising through Google comprised between % and % 

of 1-800 Contacts’ total advertising budget between 2004 and 2014.3 See IDF 66; RX0739 

(Murphy Expert Report) at 027-028, 092, 140. Paid search advertising through Google using 

1-800 Contact’s trademarked terms constituted no more than % of 1-800 Contacts’ total 

advertising budget and no more than % of 1-800 Contacts’ paid search advertising expenses 

in any year between 2004 and 2014.4 RX0739 (Murphy Expert Report) at 027-028, 092, 140. In 

2014 (the most recent year for which data is available), paid search advertising through Google

constituted % of 1-800 Contacts’ total advertising budget of and paid 

search advertising through Google on its trademarked terms accounted for % of that total 

budget (and only % of 1-800 Contacts’ expenses on paid search advertising). RX0739 

(Murphy Expert Report) at 027-028, 092, 140. 

This massive endeavor—the kind of conduct trademark law is intended to foster—did 

more than benefit 1-800 Contacts: it pioneered the mail-order contact lens business and then the 

online contact lens business to the direct benefit of consumers in the form of reduced prices and

increased convenience and choice. 

B. 1-800 Contacts Has Been Committed to Improving the Customer Experience 

Since Its Founding. 

As Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell (the “ALJ” or “Judge Chappell”) 

found in the Initial Decision, “1-800 Contacts’ business objective from the company’s inception 

was to make the process of buying contact lenses simple and it tries to distinguish itself from 

other contact lens retailers by making it faster, easier, and more convenient to get contact 

lenses.” IDF 43; see also Coon, Tr. 2712:11-2713:7 (testifying that the company’s strategy of 

distinguishing itself on service stemmed from a recognition that it would be easy for another 

retailer to match prices but it is very difficult to “create a brand and provide great service”). This 

contrasts with other online contact lens retailers, which generally do not seek to distinguish 

themselves on the basis of customer experience, customer service, or simplicity. See CX9029 at 

004 (Bethers Dep. 9:12-11:13). 1-800 Contacts did not limit itself to competing on price because 

it found that many customers valued speed and convenience just as much as price. Coon, Tr. 

2705:16 -2708:1; see also RX1117 at 028

. 

 

3

 1-800 Contacts either did not spend money on paid search advertising in 2002 and 2003, or that data is unavailable. 

See RX0739 (Murphy Expert Report) at 092.

4 As with paid search advertising, 1-800 Contacts either did not spend money on paid search advertising using its 

own trademarked terms in 2002 and 2003, or that data is unavailable. See RX0739 (Murphy Expert Report) at 092.
5

1-800 Contacts has made significant investments in providing high quality service to 

customers, including a dedicated call center, prompt shipping within two business days, quality 

control measures in inventory, prescription verification, and a 100% guaranteed return policy. 

CX9031 at 024 (C. Schmidt Dep. 90:2-92:3); Coon, Tr. 2690:20-2692:15. 1-800 Contacts stocks 

more contact lenses in inventory than any other contact lens retailer, which allows it to fill 98% 

of all orders from inventory on hand; answers most calls with a live person by the third ring and 

most emails within 10 minutes; has live customer support personnel available to answer text 

messages; offers click-to-chat customer service; and replaces torn lenses for free. IDF 44-46; 

Coon, Tr. 2690:20-2692:15; RX0904 at 016.

In addition, 1-800 Contacts designed its website with the same goals as Mr. Coons 

founded the company: to make the contact lens buying experience better for customers. See IDF 

39. The website was as simple and efficient as possible, minimizing “the amount of time spent 

on the website and the number of clicks a consumer had to make to purchase contact lenses.” Id. 

Over time, the company continued to improve its website and developed a mobile application to 

ensure that customers could purchase contact lenses as quickly and easily as possible. See, e.g., 

IDF 40-42.

1-800 Contacts’ relentless investment in its brand and in improving its customer service 

are recognized. Many third parties—including J.D. Power and Associates, StellaService Elite, 

and Foresee—have recognized or given awards to 1-800 Contacts for its customer service. IDF 

47; see also RX0736 (Goodstein Expert Report) at 016, Table 2 (listing other awards received by 

1-800 Contacts, including awards for its customer service). But that has not stopped 1-800 

Contacts from continuing to invest in improving its service to enhance the customer experience. 

See, e.g., IDF 48.

The service and brand investments made by 1-800 Contacts have resulted in millions of 

consumers purchasing contact lenses from 1-800 Contacts over the phone and online. They are 

precisely the types of investments that trademark law exists to protect and encourage. And, 

according to multiple witnesses, they created precisely the value that other retailers sought to 

derive by bidding on 1-800 Contacts’ trademarked terms. See, e.g., CX9033 at 017 (Mohan Dep. 

61:9-12) (Walmart executive testifying that 1-800 Contacts’ trademarks were more valuable as 

search terms “[b]ecause a lot more people know the brand.”); CX9039 at 040 (Clarkson Dep. 

155:25-156:8) (AC Lens executive testifying that the value it receives from paid trademark 

search advertising depends on the strength of the competitors’ brand); id. at 026 (97:20-98:3)

(noting 1-800 Contacts “unmatched brand awareness”).

C. The Trademark Settlements Resolved Legitimate and Contested Trademark 

Infringement Claims.

1. The Context Surrounding the Trademark Settlements.

The Trademark Settlements resolved trademark infringement claims brought by 1-800 

Contacts against certain other online contact lens sellers, which bought advertisements using 

1-800 Contacts’ trademarks as keywords—i.e., when consumers searched for “1-800 Contacts”, 

the search engine would display advertisements for the other sellers. As early as 2002, online 

retailers of contact lenses expressed concern that bidding for advertisements using third parties’ 
6

trademarks might be illegal. See, e.g., IDF 583 (“In 2002, AC Lens decided not to use 1-800 

Contacts’ trademarks as keywords for paid search advertising because of legal concerns.”); 

Clarkson, Tr. 325:6-23 (AC Lens executive testifying that “it was unclear to me what the legal 

situation was relative to advertising on other companies’ trademarks” and that he had a concern 

about advertising on other companies’ trademarks “for a long time”); CX9003 at 024 (Clarkson 

Dep. 90:21-91:10) (“I think I had a general sort of concern that [paid trademark search 

advertising] may not be legal anyway.”). 1-800 Contacts itself had a policy that pre-dated the 

Trademark Settlements not to use other companies’ trademarked terms as keywords to trigger 

paid search advertisements, in part attributable to a concern about the propriety of using other 

companies’ trademarks as keywords. CX9031 at 016 (C. Schmidt Dep. 57:7-59:1); CX9001 at 

027-028 (Bethers IH 104:4-105:20).

Prior to April 2004, Google—the largest search engine since before the first Trademark 

Settlements—did not permit advertisers to bid on keywords that contained a trademark owned by 

a third party. See IDF 137, 287. Microsoft, which owns Bing—the second-largest online search 

engine after Google—had the same policy until 2011. See IDF 298.

1-800 Contacts executives met with Google representatives in April 2004, the same 

month that Google changed its policy and began allowing advertisers to bid on the trademarks of 

other companies. See Schmidt, Tr. 2900:12-2901:1. At this meeting, 1-800 Contacts understood 

Google’s position to be that while Google would no longer resolve trademark disputes directly, it 

offered negative keywords as an effective tool to prevent or inhibit future trademark 

infringement. Schmidt, Tr. 2904:2-16, 2905:16-25; CX9031 at 010 (C. Schmidt Dep. 33:20-

34:21). Negative keywords prevent an advertisement from being triggered by the words or 

phrases comprising the negative keywords. Stip. at 2. According to 1-800 Contacts, Google 

representatives specifically suggested that 1-800 Contacts resolve its disputes directly with its 

competitors by telling them to implement 1-800 Contacts’ trademarks as negative keywords. 

CX9031 at 010-011 (C. Schmidt Dep. 33:20-34:20, 36:13-37:3); CX9013 at 044-045 (Aston 

Dep. 170:8-20, 171:10-172:3, 173:5-20).

Following Google’s policy change in April 2004, 1-800 Contacts continued to protect its 

trademarks vigorously because, among other things, failure to police a trademark could render a 

trademark unenforceable. Hogan, Tr. 3265:4-3266:9; see also RX0734 (Hogan Expert Report) at 

013 (citing Malaco Leaf, AB v. Promotion In Motion, Inc., 287 F. Supp. 2d 355, 364-65 

(S.D.N.Y. 2003) (“[T]rade dress may become generic, meaning commonly used and not entitled 

to protection, as a result of the trademark owner’s failure to police it”) (citation, brackets, and 

quotation marks omitted); Bachellerie v. Z. Cavaricci, Inc., 762 F. Supp. 1070, 1077 (S.D.N.Y. 

1991) (failure of plaintiff to enforce its mark against third-party users “diminishes the strength of 

the mark”)). Other trademark owners acted in a similar manner. See RX0734 (Hogan Expert 

Report) at 083-086; RX0926 at 001 (listing cases involving the “purchase of another party’s 

trademark as a keyword for internet advertising”). Some of these attempts by trademark owners 

to protect their marks ultimately led to litigation.

In the initial years of paid search advertising litigation, between 2004 and 2009, it was 

unclear whether courts would recognize a cause of action under a theory that bidding on 

trademarked terms as keywords constituted a “use in commerce” under the Lanham Act, a 

critical predicate to establishing a trademark infringement claim. IDF 333; RX0734 (Hogan 
7

Expert Report) at 059-060. Only three of the Trademark Settlements were signed during this 

period: Vision Direct (executed in June 2004), Coastal Contacts (executed in October 2004), and 

EZ Contacts (executed in May 2008). See IDF 306, 314, 344.

On April 3, 2009, however, the legality of 1-800 Contacts’ competitors’ bidding on 

advertisements with 1-800 Contacts’ trademarks as keywords—precisely the conduct ended by 

the Trademark Settlements—became even more dubious when the Second Circuit issued an 

opinion holding that using trademarks as keywords in paid search advertising “fits literally 

within the terms specified by [the Lanham Act,] 15 U.S.C. § 1127” as a “use in commerce”.

Rescuecom Corp. v. Google Inc., 562 F.3d 123, 129-30 (2d Cir. 2009); see also id. at 127 (“The 

allegations of Rescuecom’s complaint adequately plead a use in commerce.”).

Following Rescuecom, federal circuit courts came to agree that bidding on trademarked 

terms as keywords for paid search advertising constituted a “use in commerce” for the purposes 

of trademark law, see IDF 333, eliminating a threshold defense in trademark infringement 

litigation. For advertisers bidding on other companies’ trademarks, this shifted the focus to 

whether, in particular cases, the use was likely to cause confusion among customers, see IDF 

333; Hogan, Tr. 3256:11-19, a highly fact-specific inquiry necessitating litigation. See Section 

II(A)(4)(a), infra. The legal risks rose, increasing the incentive for alleged trademark infringers 

to settle rather than endure a full trial on the merits, given the fact-specific nature of the inquiry 

into trademark confusion. See, e.g., Hogan, Tr. 3260:21-3261:4.

In the wake of the Rescuecom decision and the resulting change in legal exposure, 1-800 

Contacts entered nine of the thirteen Trademark Settlements between December 2009 and 

February 2011. IDF 348; CX0315 (Lensfast, Dec. 2009); RX0028 (AC Lens, Mar. 2010); 

CX0323 (Contact Lens King, Mar. 2010); CX0320 (Lenses for Less, Mar. 2010); CX0319 

(Empire Vision, May 2010); CX0321 (Tram Data, May 2010); CX0322 (Walgreens, June 2010);

CX0324 (Web Eye Care, Sept. 2010); RX0408 (Standard Optical, Feb. 2011).

One month after Rescuecom, 1-800 Contacts entered a second settlement agreement with 

Vision Direct to address Vision Direct’s alleged violations of the 2004 settlement agreement for 

failing to implement negative keywords. See IDF 345-347; CX0314 at 004 (“The 2004 

Settlement Agreement shall remain in full force and effect except that the Parties’ sole 

obligations with respect to the use of negative keywords shall be to comply with the terms of this 

Settlement Agreement.”); see also CX0316 (Order of Permanent Injunction, 1-800 Contacts, Inc. 

v. Vision Direct, Inc., No. 08-cv-1949 (S.D.N.Y May 15, 2009)). Only one Trademark 

Settlement came after the initial wave of settlements following Rescuecom: Memorial Eye settled 

in November 2013, principally because of the legal uncertainty about its failure to implement 

negative keywords on 1-800 Contacts’ trademarked terms. See, e.g., IDF 349, 351; Holbrook, Tr. 

1942:12-13 (“We knew that the [negative keyword] broad matching issue had not firmly been 

put to rest by the court.”); CX9024 at 017 (Holbrook Dep. 63:13-18) (“We also knew that in the 

appellate court, I believe it was, that the appellate court had been silent on the [negative 

keyword] broad matching issue, which was to us the most important thing. It was a big deal. So 

there was a lot of legal uncertainty because of that still hanging out there.”); see also IDF 617 

(finding that Memorial Eye did not bid on 1-800 Contacts’ trademarked terms as keywords in 

paid search advertising).
8

The Trademark Settlements resolved increasing legal risk for putative bidders on 

trademarked keywords. No one, even today, contends that the trademark claims asserted by 

1-800 Contracts were shams or legal claims asserted to achieve an otherwise anticompetitive 

end. See RX0680 at 013 (“Complaint Counsel therefore does not contend that the lawsuits 

constituted ‘sham’ litigation as defined by the Supreme Court in PRE.”) (referring to Prof’l Real 

Estate Investors, Inc. v. Columbia Pictures Indus., Inc., 508 U.S. 49 (1993)); RX0678 at 008 

(“Complaint Counsel does not contend that the lawsuit, 1-800 Contacts, Inc. v. Memorial Eye, 

P.A., was Sham Litigation.”); id. (“Complaint Counsel does not contend that the lawsuit, 1-800 

Contacts, Inc. v. Lens.com, was Sham Litigation.”); see also 1-800 Contacts, Inc. v. Memorial 

Eye, P.A., No. 08-cv-983, 2010 WL 988524, at *6 (D. Utah Mar. 15, 2010) (“[T]he Court finds 

that Plaintiff’s claim is not baseless”); Lens.com, Inc. v. 1-800 Contacts, Inc., No. 12-cv-352, 

2014 WL 12596493, at *1 (D. Utah Mar. 3, 2014) (“Because the district court and the Tenth 

Circuit agree that the underlying action was not baseless, this court agrees that Lens’ claims, all 

of which center on the proposition that 1-800 engaged in sham litigation, should be dismissed 

with prejudice.”).

2. The Relevant Terms Contained in the Trademark Settlements.

The Trademark Settlements resolved legitimate intellectual property infringement claims. 

They were bilateral: 1-800 Contacts entered each Trademark Settlement separately and with a 

single counterparty to protect each settling party’s trademarks. No material amount of money 

changed hands.5 Users who searched for 1-800 Contacts’ trademarks would not see an 

advertisement for the other settling party (although they might see an “organic” search result, 

depending on relevance, see Stip. at 5). The parties were adjusting to an evolving market and 

increased legal risk, achieving by contract (with implementing guidance from Google)6 what had 

previously been the stated policy of the two most popular search engines.7 See CX9031 at 010-

011 (C. Schmidt Dep. 33:20-35:2, 35:23-36:2, 36:13-37:3); CX9013 at 044 (Aston Dep. 172:1-3)

(“They [Google] instructed us [1-800 Contacts] to have the offenders add those specific 

trademarked terms into their negatives for their -- for their AdWords campaigns.”); id. at 044-

045 (Aston Dep. 170:8-20, 171:10-19, 173:5-20). First, the Trademark Settlements prohibited 

both 1-800 Contacts and the counterparty from bidding on each other’s trademarked terms as 

 

5 Certain Trademark Settlements contained token amounts of monetary consideration, but nothing approaching the 

millions of dollars at issue in FTC v. Actavis, Inc., 570 U.S. 136 (2013), and always in the usual direction (i.e., from 

the defendant to the plaintiff). See CX0311 at 002 (Vision Direct paid $1 in monetary consideration in 2004); 

CX0313 at 002 (EZ Contacts paid $29,000 in monetary consideration); CX0314 at 001 (Vision Direct paid $475,000 

in 2009 for “partial reimbursement of 1-800 Contacts’ attorneys’ fees”); CX0315 at 001 (Lensfast made a $20,000 

payment); CX0323 at 001 ($8,000 payment by Contact Lens King); CX0324 at 001 ($2,000 payment by Web Eye 

Care); cf. Actavis, 570 U.S. at 145 (“[The branded manufacturer] agreed to pay millions of dollars to each generic”). 

None of the payments split monopoly rents, cf. Actavis, 570 U.S. at 154; indeed, the majority of Trademark 

Settlements had no monetary component. See CX0310 (Coastal Contacts); RX0028 (AC Lens); CX0320 at 002 

(Lenses for Less); CX0319 (Empire Vision); CX0321 (Tram Data); CX0322 (Walgreens); RX0408 (Standard 

Optical); CX0326 (Memorial Eye).

6 The April 2004 meeting between 1-800 Contacts and Google predated all of the Trademark Settlements, the first of 

which was executed in June 2004. See CX0311 (Vision Direct Trademark Settlement, dated June 24, 2004).

7 All but one of the Trademark Settlements incorporated Google’s advice to use negative keywords to ensure that the 

settling parties’ trademarks were protected. See Compl. ¶ 24; CX0310 (1-800 Contacts’ Trademark Settlement with 

Coastal Contacts did not include a provision requiring the implementation of negative keywords).
9

keywords. IDF 363. Second, twelve of the thirteen Trademark Settlements required both parties 

to implement negative keywords to prevent their advertisements from appearing in response to 

searches for the other party’s trademarked terms. IDF 364; ID at 1; Compl. ¶ 24.

It is important to keep in mind what the Trademark Settlements did not require. The 

Trademark Settlements did not prevent 1-800 Contacts or other online contact lens retailers from 

engaging in any form of non-infringing advertising. There were no restrictions on the settling 

parties’ ability to advertise offline (e.g., through print, television, or radio); to advertise using 

other forms of electronic/online advertising (e.g., internet display advertising, affiliate marketing, 

social media advertising, and search engine optimization); or to engage in paid search advertising 

as long as the advertisement did not appear in response to a search for one of the settling parties’ 

trademarks. Nothing prevented the parties from buying advertisements to respond to consumers’ 

searches for generic terms or phrases, such as “contacts”, “contact lenses”, “cheap contacts”, 

“inexpensive contacts”, or “discount contacts”. See, e.g., IDF 367. And the parties to the 

Trademark Settlements did, in fact, engage in many of these other types of advertising. See IDF 

497-561 (describing the importance of paid search advertising generally—i.e., not just for 

trademarked keywords—to contact lens retailers, and noting that most retailers advertise in 

forms other than paid search advertising); see also Op. at 6-7 (noting the importance of paid 

search advertising generally—i.e., not just for trademarked keywords—to contact lens retailers).

Neither the majority’s opinion nor the Initial Decision identifies what portion of the marketing 

budgets of the counterparties to the Trademark Settlements comprises trademark search 

advertising (as opposed to paid search advertising generally).

Most of the Trademark Settlements specifically permit non-infringing uses like 

comparative advertising and parodies. For example, the 2004 settlement agreement between 

Vision Direct and 1-800 Contacts stated that the acts prohibited by the agreement “shall not 

include (i) use of the other Party’s Trademarks on the Internet in a manner that would not 

constitute an infringing use in an non-Internet context, e.g., the use on the Internet of 

comparative advertising, parodies, and similar non-Infringing uses . . . .” CX0311 at 004; see 

also IDF 369 (citing CX0311 at 004 (Vision Direct 2004); CX0313 at 004 (EZ Contacts); 

CX0315 at 004 (Lensfast); CX0319 at 002 (Empire Vision); CX0320 at 004 (Lenses for Less); 

CX0321 at 002 (Tram Data); CX0323 at 003 (Contact Lens King); CX0324 at 003 (Web Eye 

Care); RX0028 at 002 (AC Lens); RX0408 at 003 (Standard Optical)); see also Op. at 9 (citing 

IDF 369 for the proposition that ten of the thirteen Trademark Settlements contained a clause 

permitting non-infringing uses).

The Trademark Settlements likewise place no restrictions on the content that any of the 

settling parties may include in their advertisements. The settling parties are free to advertise 

lower prices and higher quality whenever and, in general, wherever they like. And, of course, the 

restrictions in the Trademark Settlements impact only those consumers who search specifically 

for 1-800 Contacts’ trademarks, the vast majority of which searches are navigational, i.e., 

searches performed by the consumer with the intent to locate 1-800 Contacts’ website. RX0733 

(Ghose Expert Report) at 032, 050.

The Trademark Settlements sought to balance 1-800 Contacts’ legitimate interests in 

protecting its trademarks with competitors’ (and consumers’) interests in truthful advertising.
10

II. The Majority Fail to Show That the Trademark Settlements Are Anticompetitive.

The majority deem the Trademark Settlements anticompetitive by applying the 

“inherently suspect” framework, which truncates the traditional rule of reason analysis, and, 

alternatively, by finding direct anticompetitive effects. Governing precedent supports neither 

approach on the facts adduced, and in neither analysis do the majority grapple adequately with 

the intellectual property rights at the heart of this case.

A. The Trademark Settlements Are Not Inherently Suspect.

1. Categorizing Conduct as Inherently Suspect Is a Drastic Step.

The Supreme Court has made clear time and again that “abandonment of the ‘rule of 

reason’ in favor of presumptive rules (or a ‘quick-look’ [i.e., inherently suspect] approach) is 

appropriate only where ‘an observer with even a rudimentary understanding of economics could 

conclude that the arrangements in question would have an anticompetitive effect on customers 

and markets.’”8 FTC v. Actavis, Inc., 570 U.S. 136, 159 (2013) (quoting Cal. Dental Ass’n v. 

FTC, 526 U.S. 756, 770 (1999)). The per se and inherently suspect “standards are 

exceptional . . . and their application is reserved for the most patently anticompetitive restraints.”

Craftsmen Limousine, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 491 F.3d 380, 387 (8th Cir. 2007), cert. denied, 

552 U.S. 1040 (2007). “[T]he Supreme Court has cautioned that presumptions of 

anticompetitiveness should not be lightly invoked.” Princo Corp. v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 616 

F.3d 1318, 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (en banc) (citing Broadcast Music, Inc. v. Columbia Broad.

Sys., Inc. (“BMI”), 441 U.S. 1, 8-9 (1979)), cert. denied, 563 U.S. 987 (2011); see also id. 

(“Quick-look analysis applies to ‘naked restraint[s] on price and output’”) (brackets in original)

(quoting Cal. Dental, 526 U.S. at 769-70). In our rulings, the Commission has recognized as 

much. See, e.g., In re N. Tex. Specialty Physicians, 140 F.T.C. 715, 719, 733 (2005), aff’d in 

relevant part sub nom., N. Tex. Specialty Physicians v. FTC, 528 F.3d 346 (5th Cir. 2008), cert. 

denied, 555 U.S. 1170 (2009).

9

The Trademark Settlements do not approximate conduct that the Commission or courts 

have previously found to be inherently suspect, much less per se illegal. Those precedents make 

abundantly clear that the Commission should not treat the Trademark Settlements as 

 

8 “Quick look” is the federal judiciary’s equivalent to the Commission’s “inherently suspect” framework. See, e.g., 

N. Tex. Specialty Physicians v. FTC (“NTSP”), 528 F.3d 346, 360-61 (5th Cir. 2008) (“The ‘inherently suspect’ 

paradigm that the FTC employed in the present case is a ‘quick-look’ rule-of-reason analysis.”), cert. denied, 555 

U.S. 1170 (2009).

9 The majority apparently do not view application of the “inherently suspect” framework as exceptional. Their 

opinion suggests that as long as they consider the specific procompetitive justifications of the challenged conduct, it 

does not matter whether the “inherently suspect” label is applied. See Op. at 41. The majority’s view not only 

discounts any value of trademarks generally and relies on assessments in each case of the value of the trademarks at 

issue, see id. at 38-41, it also gives short shrift to the precedent instructing that application of the “inherently 

suspect” label is exceptional. See, e.g., Cal. Dental, 526 U.S. at 769-81.
11

presumptively unlawful. That is especially so given the trademark rights involved, an issue that 

none of the cases on which the majority rely even consider.10

2. We Lack an Adequate Basis to Declare the Trademark Settlements 

Inherently Suspect.

In California Dental, the progenitor for the Commission’s “inherently suspect” 

framework,11 the Supreme Court outlined the test for when it is appropriate to truncate the rule 

of reason analysis: only “when the great likelihood of anticompetitive effects can easily be 

ascertained.” Cal. Dental, 526 U.S. at 770 (citations omitted). “[W]here . . . any anticompetitive 

effects of given restraints are far from intuitively obvious,” however, “the rule of reason 

demands a more thorough enquiry . . . .” Id. at 759. “The object is to see whether the experience 

of the market has been so clear, or necessarily will be, that a confident conclusion about the 

principal tendency of a restriction will follow from a quick (or at least quicker) look, in place of 

a more sedulous one.” Id. at 781.

Lower courts and the Commission have elaborated upon the market experience necessary 

to apply the “inherently suspect” framework. Interpreting California Dental, the D.C. Circuit 

held in Polygram that “[i]f, based upon economic learning and the experience of the market, it is 

obvious that a restraint of trade likely impairs competition, then the restraint is presumed 

unlawful . . . .” Polygram Holding, Inc. v. FTC (“Polygram II”), 416 F.3d 29, 36 (D.C. Cir. 

2005), aff’g sub nom., In re Polygram Holding, Inc. (“Polygram I”), 136 F.T.C. 310 (2003). We 

likewise stated that inherently suspect conduct “ordinarily encompasses behavior that past 

judicial experience and current economic learning have shown to warrant summary 

condemnation.” Polygram I, 136 F.T.C. at 344-45. That judicial experience and economic 

learning are absent here.

a) We Lack Sufficient Judicial Experience to Presume the Trademark 

Settlements Are Unlawful.

The facts of this case do not fit neatly into the jurisprudence on advertising restraints. The 

cases upon which the majority rely involve complete advertising bans or limitations on the 

content that advertisements could contain, neither of which is present here. Such restraints 

prevent price signals from reaching the market, whereas the Trademark Settlements are alleged 

only to reduce the opportunity of certain consumers—specifically, those searching for 1-800 

Contacts’ trademarks—to see advertisements paid for by other sellers in response to those 

searches. In addition, none of the cases the majority cite implicate intellectual property rights, the 

presence of which necessarily changes the analysis because the Commission must account for a 

competing federal policy.

 

10 I disagree with the majority’s attempts to distinguish the two relevant cases that involve intellectual property, 

Clorox Co. v. Sterling Winthrop, Inc., 117 F.3d 50 (2d Cir. 1997), and Actavis. See Section II(A)(3), infra

(discussing Clorox); Sections II(A)(2)(a)(i), II(A)(4)(a), II(C), infra (discussing Actavis).

11 See NTSP, 528 F.3d at 361 (“The FTC formulated its ‘inherently suspect’ analysis after the issuance of California 

Dental Association”) (citing Polygram Holding, Inc. v. FTC (“Polygram II”), 416 F.3d 29, 35-36 (D.C. Cir. 2005)).
12

i. California Dental Supports the Application of the Traditional Rule 

of Reason Here.

The California Dental experience, sunny and painful though it must have been, makes 

clear that we should not truncate the traditional rule of reason here. In that case, the California 

Dental Association adopted a policy that “effectively prohibited members from advertising price 

discounts in most cases, and entirely precluded advertising regarding the quality of services.” In 

re Realcomp II Ltd. (“Realcomp I”), Dkt. No. 9320, 2007 WL 6936319, at *20 (F.T.C. Oct. 30, 

2009), aff’d sub nom., Realcomp II, Ltd. v. FTC (“Realcomp II”), 635 F.3d 815 (6th Cir. 2011), 

cert. denied, 565 U.S. 942 (2011). Limitations on price and quality advertising have a more 

obvious direct effect on the price setting mechanism of the market because they prevent 

information about price and quality from spreading. See, e.g., Cal. Dental, 526 U.S. at 773 (“The 

explanation proffered by the Court of Appeals for the likely anticompetitive effect of the 

[California Dental Association]’s restrictions on discount advertising began with the 

unexceptionable statements that price advertising is fundamental to price competition, and that 

restrictions on the ability to advertise prices normally make it more difficult for consumers to 

find a lower price and for dentists to compete on the basis of price”) (internal citations, quotation 

marks, and alterations omitted). Yet the Court applied the traditional rule of reason, because 

there was an insufficiently strong and obvious connection between the restraint and the price 

setting mechanism of the market for dental services. See Cal. Dental, 526 U.S. at 759, 774-78. 

The test, as the majority correctly note, is whether “the normal linkage between advertising 

restrictions and price/output effects in the underlying product market [i]s attenuated”. Op. at 42.

The link between the restraints here and price or output effects is far more attenuated than 

that in California Dental. As a threshold matter, Complaint Counsel did not demonstrate any

output effect. See ID at 153 n.36 (“Complaint Counsel does not contend that the Challenged

Agreements reduced the output of contact lenses.”). The Trademark Settlements permit 

advertising, including on price and quality. They do not restrict the content of advertisements 

that 1-800 Contacts or the counterparties can run in innumerable contexts, including in response 

to search queries. And, of course, the Trademark Settlements do not bind sellers of contact lenses 

that are not parties to those agreements. In all of these ways, information about prices continued 

to reach the market. For a subset of potential contact lens customers—who search specifically for 

“1-800 Contacts”—the Trademark Settlements reduce one avenue for discovering products

offered by certain other sellers of contact lenses. But, even for those customers not looking for 

1-800 Contacts’ website,

12 the cost of additional discovery is minimal: another search, a scroll 

down the results page, a moment’s hesitation. Given that the California Dental Court applied the 

traditional rule of reason to analyze restraints with a more obvious anticompetitive impact, a 

fortiori, the restraints here should not be analyzed under a harsher standard.

 

12 According to Respondent’s expert, Dr. Anindya Ghose, “the academic literature and the data [ ] indicate that the 

vast majority of consumers searching for 1-800 Contacts’ trademark do so with navigational intent.” RX0733 

(Ghose Expert Report) at 060.
13

Actavis supports this conclusion.13 In that case, the Supreme Court rejected a “quick 

look” (i.e., inherently suspect) approach when analyzing three reverse payment settlements 

resolving Hatch-Waxman patent infringement litigation. See Actavis, 570 U.S. at 158-59. It did 

so even though the alleged conduct at issue was far more harmful to competition than anything at 

issue here, as well-established economic evidence demonstrated. In particular, the FTC alleged 

that Solvay, a maker of branded pharmaceuticals, paid millions of dollars to Actavis and other 

generic pharmaceutical manufacturers to delay their entry into the market for AndroGel (a 

transdermal gel formulation of testosterone). Id. at 145; see also id. at 154 (describing the 

settlement payments as potentially “a share of [the brand’s] monopoly profits that would 

otherwise be lost in the competitive market”). The anticompetitive price effects caused by such 

settlements were well-established by studies conducted by the Commission. See, e.g., Brief for 

the Petitioner at 8, Actavis, 570 U.S. 136 (No. 12-416); Fed. Trade Comm’n, Pay-for-Delay: 

How Drug Company Pay-Offs Cost Consumers Billions, at 8 (2010). Compared to a limited 

restriction within one channel of advertising, the complete exclusion of generic competition from 

the market in exchange for a share of the brand’s monopoly profits—keeping prices at 

supracompetitive levels—is clearly worse for consumers. While Actavis may not, as the majority 

contend, “stand for the proposition that no restriction in a settlement agreement . . . can be 

inherently suspect”, Op. at 35, it clearly does not support treating less egregious restrictions as 

presumptively unlawful.

The majority attempt to distinguish California Dental by limiting its holding to 

professional services. See id. at 21-22, 42. But the Court did not do so, applying its rule to 

situations that “fail[ ] to present a situation in which the likelihood of anticompetitive effects 

is [ ] obvious”. Cal. Dental, 526 U.S. at 771. It has continued to rely upon that case outside of the 

professional services context. In Actavis, the Court applied California Dental to find that reverse 

payment settlements did not meet the criteria necessary to abandon “the ‘rule of reason’ in favor 

of presumptive rules (or a ‘quick-look’ approach)” because it was not the case that “‘an observer 

with even a rudimentary understanding of economics could conclude that the arrangements in 

question would have an anticompetitive effect on customers and markets.’” Actavis, 570 U.S. at 

159 (quoting Cal. Dental, 526 U.S. at 770). Other courts have similarly applied the logic of 

California Dental beyond the professional services context. See, e.g., California ex rel. Harris v. 

Safeway, Inc., 651 F.3d 1118, 1137-39 (9th Cir. 2011) (en banc).

While the potential procompetitive benefits of the advertising restrictions in the context 

of professional services helped persuade the Court to apply the rule of reason, see Cal. Dental, 

526 U.S. at 771-73, the broader takeaway is that grappling with countervailing considerations 

gave it pause before classifying as presumptively unlawful restraints more obviously problematic 

than those at issue here. See, e.g., Polygram I, 136 F.T.C. at 340 (“The Court [in California 

 

13 I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Actavis does not immunize the 

Trademark Settlements from liability. See Op. at 12-16. That said, I do not believe the majority opinion applies 

Actavis properly to the facts of this case. In Actavis, the Supreme Court rejected the “scope of the patent” test, which 

would have rendered all settlements of patent infringement claims immune to antitrust liability. Actavis, 570 U.S. at 

147. There are four issues from Actavis worthy of note here: the Supreme Court (1) created an exception, (2) did not 

assess the underlying infringement claim, (3) called for traditional rule-of-reason treatment of the reverse payment 

settlement agreement at issue there, and (4) saw indicia of anticompetitive conduct in the reverse payment settlement 

that are not present here. For the reasons stated elsewhere in this dissenting statement, we should follow Actavis and

(a) refrain from making a judgment on the underlying infringement claim and (b) apply the traditional rule of reason.
14

Dental] concluded that . . . in the absence of any empirical evidence supporting the theoretical 

basis for a presumption of anticompetitive effects, [the defendant]’s identification of plausible 

procompetitive justifications precluded the ‘indulgently abbreviated’ review of the Ninth 

Circuit.”) (citing Cal. Dental, 526 U.S. at 774-78). In this case, the plausibility of the benefits 

that the protection of intellectual property rights bring to competition “rules out the indulgently 

abbreviated review” provided by the majority. Cal. Dental, 526 U.S. at 778.

14 “The obvious 

anticompetitive effect that triggers abbreviated analysis has not been shown.” Id.

ii. Polygram Does Not Support an “Inherently Suspect” Approach.

The majority rely on Polygram to support their categorization of the Trademark 

Settlements as inherently suspect. Polygram involved a worldwide and total ban on advertising. 

See Polygram I, 136 F.T.C. at 354-58, 372; cf. id. at 340 (distinguishing California Dental

because the restrictions at issue in California Dental “did not ban advertising completely”). In 

addition to agreeing not to advertise at all, the Polygram defendants agreed not to discount the 

albums they were selling. Polygram II, 416 F.3d at 37. That is, they fixed prices—conduct long 

condemned as per se illegal. Id. Treating the price fixing agreement and the complete advertising 

ban together,15 the D.C. Circuit focused on the former: “An agreement between joint venturers to 

restrain price cutting and advertising with respect to products not part of the joint venture looks 

suspiciously like a naked price fixing agreement between competitors, which would ordinarily be 

condemned as per se unlawful.” Id. (emphasis added). It was precisely because the agreement 

looked like price fixing—“behavior that past judicial experience . . . ha[d] shown to warrant 

summary condemnation”, Polygram I, 136 F.T.C. at 344-45—that the D.C. Circuit upheld the 

Commission’s decision to find the agreement presumptively unlawful. See Polygram II, 416 F.3d 

at 37-38.

There is no price fixing here. Nor is there an advertising ban. 1-800 Contacts and the 

counterparties to the Trademark Settlements were free to engage in any type of advertising they 

saw fit, including paid keyword search advertising, as long as they did not implicate each other’s 

 

14 It is no answer at this stage in the analysis to say that 1-800 Contacts’ underlying infringement claims were weak, 

a fact-specific judgment we should avoid for the reasons I discuss below. See Section II(A)(4)(a), infra. Were it so, 

the analytical framework we apply, a legal question, would depend on a highly-factual inquiry.

15 Even if the advertising restrictions at issue in Polygram were treated separately from the price fixing agreement 

(contrary to the D.C. Circuit’s approach), that case still does not support a finding that the Trademark Settlements 

are inherently suspect. In Polygram, the Commission and the D.C. Circuit found that both restraints (advertising and 

price fixing) were severable from the underlying joint venture. See Polygram II, 416 F.3d at 37; Polygram I, 136 

F.T.C. at 359. This was a critical analytical step toward the finding that the agreement was inherently suspect 

because—without the underlying joint venture—the restraints became standalone (i.e., naked) agreements between 

direct competitors not to compete in significant ways. See Polygram II, 416 F.3d at 37; Polygram I, 136 F.T.C. at 

359, 361, 363, 366. Nobody has suggested that the advertising limitations at issue here are somehow severable from 

the Trademark Settlements. Thus, even assuming that Polygram held that the advertising ban at issue there, standing 

alone, was inherently suspect (which the D.C. Circuit did not), the same logic cannot apply here because the alleged 

advertising restraint is not severable from the Trademark Settlements.
15

trademarks. The Trademark Settlements do not look “suspiciously” like any per se illegal 

conduct,16 so Polygram does not support applying the “inherently suspect” framework here.

iii. Other Case Law Supports Application of the Rule of Reason.

The remaining cases cited by the majority for our judicial experience likewise do not 

support an “inherently suspect” approach on the facts adduced here. Critically, none involve

intellectual property. And all involve advertising restrictions that bear no resemblance to the 

Trademark Settlements because the restraints at issue were: (1) complete bans on advertising17;

(2) restrictions on the content of advertisements (i.e., limitations or bans on the ability to 

advertise price or quality)18; or (3) restrictions akin to per se violations of the Sherman Act.19

The distinction between the restrictions at issue in those cases and the Trademark Settlements is 

significant, because it is obvious how a complete ban on advertising (without implicating 

intellectual property rights) and these other types of restrictions could be anticompetitive. Far 

less obvious is how some consumers not seeing advertisements in response to searches for 

certain trademarked terms has the same effect. That is precisely the line drawn in California 

Dental, and there should be no doubt on which side the Trademark Settlements fall.

b) We Lack Sufficient Economic Learning to Presume the Trademark 

Settlements Are Unlawful.

The economic studies cited by the majority do not examine paid search advertising, see

Op. at 20-21, much less how restraints upon it interact with the trademark policies at issue here. 

The majority instead state that “the behavior of consumers and advertiser-sellers in response to 

this type of advertising is the same as for other types of advertising”, id. at 35, an assertion that is 

both unsupported and inconsistent with the majority’s position that “search-based keyword 

advertising” occurs in a “relatively new context”, id. at 29; see also id. at 2 (“This phenomenon 

is comparatively recent”). The economic evidence upon which the majority rely is insufficient to 

 

16 The majority apparently want to have it both ways with respect to whether they believe the Trademark 

Settlements are analogous to per se illegal conduct. In one breath, they suggest that the Trademark Settlements are 

analogous to per se illegal bid rigging, see Op. at 14, but in the next they analyze the Trademark Settlements’

alleged harm to search engines under the rule of reason, see id. at 50-54. As discussed in more detail below, there is 

insufficient evidence to conclude that Trademark Settlements harmed search engines, much less constituted per se 

illegal bid rigging. See Section II(E), infra.

17 See, e.g., Bates v. State Bar of Ariz., 433 U.S. 350 (1977) (state bar rule prohibiting all advertising by lawyers in 

newspapers or other media); Polygram II, 416 F.3d at 33 (agreement to prohibit discounts and advertising); In re 

Am. Med. Ass’n, 94 F.T.C. 701, 1979 WL 199033, at *231 (Oct. 12, 1979) (“[I]t is fair to say that almost all 

advertising and promotional activity is proscribed, with a few narrowly circumscribed exceptions.”).

18 See, e.g., Cal. Dental, 526 U.S. at 762 (dental association rules effectively prohibited price advertising in most 

cases and entirely prohibited quality advertising); Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U.S. 374, 388-89 

(1992) (state restrictions on airlines fare (i.e., price) advertising); In re Mass. Board of Registration in Optometry, 

110 F.T.C. 549, 1988 WL 1025476, at *27-*29 (June 13, 1988) (complete ban on truthful advertising of discount 

prices and other categories of advertising).

19 See, e.g., BMI, 441 U.S. at 4 (agreements to fix prices); Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n v. Bd. of Regents of the 

Univ. of Okla., 468 U.S. 85, 98-101 (1984) (horizontal price fixing and restrictions on output); NTSP, 528 F.3d at 

352 (horizontal price fixing); Blackburn v. Sweeney, 53 F.3d 825, 828-29 (7th Cir. 1995) (horizontal agreement to 

allocate markets among competitors); United States v. Gasoline Retailers Ass’n, Inc., 285 F.2d 688, 689-91 (7th Cir. 

1961) (criminal prosecution for conspiracy to fix prices).
16

expand the scope of what we consider “inherently suspect” to include the Trademark 

Settlements.20

3. The Majority Should Not Have Truncated Their Rule of Reason Analysis.

Applicable precedent makes clear that the Trademark Settlements should be analyzed 

under the traditional rule of reason. And the cases on which the majority rely fail to provide 

support for truncating that analysis by applying the “inherently suspect” framework. As noted, 

those cases do not involve trademarks, or intellectual property of any kind. That is relevant—

indeed, decisive—because trademarks often limit advertising in one way or another, and the 

logic of the majority’s analysis would support a rule that stigmatizes conduct protecting those 

rights, which is clearly procompetitive, as presumptively unlawful.

Consider a situation in which a company uses a competitor’s trademark in an 

advertisement in a way that clearly creates confusion and, thus, infringes on a valid trademark. 

The mark owner sues and the parties settle, barring the conduct in question. The settlement 

restrains advertising. Some consumers are deprived of the opportunity to see an advertisement 

for a lower-priced competing product, the nub of the majority’s theory in this case. And the 

alleged infringer, which sells that competing product, reaches fewer customers because it is 

unable to use the more desirable advertising scheme. While the majority eschew the result, see 

Op. at 40, their logic would treat this settlement agreement as “inherently suspect” (i.e., 

presumptively illegal).

The answer is to follow the one case cited by the parties that considers a trademark 

settlement in the context of antitrust law: the Second Circuit’s decision in Clorox Co. v. Sterling 

Winthrop, Inc., 117 F.3d 50 (2d Cir. 1997). Clorox, the only truly analogous case, and far more 

so than any case upon which the majority rely, makes clear that the Trademark Settlements 

should be evaluated using a traditional rule of reason analysis with appropriate recognition of 

trademark policy.

a) Summary of Clorox.

Clorox involved an antitrust challenge brought by Clorox (the then-current owner of the 

Pine-Sol trademark) against Reckitt (the then-current owner of the Lysol trademark) regarding a 

trademark settlement agreement executed by the parties’ predecessors-in-interest. See Clorox, 

117 F.3d at 52. The agreement restricted how Clorox could advertise Pine-Sol products and what 

products Clorox could sell under the Pine-Sol brand. Id. at 53-54. After acquiring the Pine-Sol 

mark, Clorox sued Reckitt claiming that the settlement agreement was anticompetitive because it 

restricted Clorox’s ability to compete using the Pine-Sol mark and served no legitimate 

trademark purpose because there was no longer a likelihood of consumer confusion between the 

marks. Id. at 54.

 

20 The majority also appear to require 1-800 Contacts to prove that paid search advertising is different from other 

types of advertising. See Op. at 34-35. This places the burden of proof on the wrong party; it is Complaint Counsel’s 

burden to show that paid search advertising operates the same as other types of advertising.
17

The Second Circuit started its analysis with the proposition that trademark settlements are 

“common, and favored, under the law.” Id. at 55 (citing J. Thomas McCarthy, McCarthy on 

Trademarks and Unfair Competition § 18:25 (4th ed. 1996) [hereinafter “McCarthy 4th 

Edition”]) (other citations omitted).21 The court presumed that “arms-length [trademark 

settlement] agreements are pro-competitive”, id. at 60, and that “[e]fforts to protect trademarks, 

even aggressive ones, serve the competitive purpose of furthering trademark policies”, id. at 61.

The rule declared by the Second Circuit was not absolute and would not apply where a

trademark settlement was a pretext for a per se violation of the antitrust laws.22 Id. at 55-56 

(“Unlike trademark agreements that in reality serve to divide markets and thus have been 

condemned as illegal per se under the antitrust laws, the agreement at issue here merely regulates 

the way a competitor can use a competing mark. Contrary to Clorox’s argument, the agreement 

does not effect any of the types of restraints that have historically been condemned as illegal per 

se, such as price fixing, market divisions, tying arrangements, or boycotts.”) (internal citations 

omitted); see also id. at 60 (“[I]n the absence of any evidence that the provisions relating to 

trademark protection are auxiliary to an underlying illegal agreement between competitors . . . 

and absent exceptional circumstances, we believe the parties’ determination of the scope of 

needed trademark protections is entitled to substantial weight.”).

Determining that the trademark settlement at issue there “must” be examined under the 

rule of reason, id. at 56, the Clorox court gave appropriate weight to the value of trademark 

policy. It held that plaintiffs challenging trademark settlements under antitrust law face a 

“difficult task” of proving harm to competition. Id. at 56. That is so, the Second Circuit held, 

even when the underlying trademark settlement agreement “only marginally advances trademark 

policies”. Id. at 57. “[R]egardless of whether the agreement is entirely necessary to protect [the 

defendant’s] trademark rights”, the Second Circuit held that a plaintiff still was required to show

that an alleged anticompetitive restraint “may significantly harm competition as a whole”. Id. at 

57 (emphasis added) (citation omitted). After performing a rule of reason analysis, the Second 

Circuit held that the trademark settlement agreement at issue there did not violate the antitrust 

laws. Id. at 60-61.

 

21 See also Clorox, 117 F.3d at 60 (“[T]rademark agreements are favored in the law as a means by which parties 

agree to market products in a way that reduces the likelihood of consumer confusion and avoids time-consuming 

litigation.”).

22 The Second Circuit’s finding that the rule of reason applies unless the challenged conduct is “auxiliary to an 

underlying illegal agreement between competitors”, Clorox, 117 F.3d at 60, is reminiscent of Polygram, where thenChief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg found that “under the Commission’s own framework, the rebuttable presumption 

of illegality arises not necessarily from anything ‘inherent’ in a business practice but from the close family 

resemblance between the suspect practice and another practice that already stands convicted in the court of 

consumer welfare.” Polygram II, 416 F.3d at 37.
18

b) Applying Clorox to the Trademark Settlements.

Clorox is on all fours with this case: an ex post antitrust challenge to an agreement that 

settled trademark infringement litigation.23 And the restraint at issue here does not involve a 

settlement that is a pretext for a per se violation of the antitrust laws, so it does not fall into the 

exception to the rule of reason described by the Second Circuit. See Id. at 55-56, 60. As a result, 

the Commission should analyze the Trademark Settlements under the traditional rule of reason—

without treating the Trademark Settlements as inherently suspect—as the Second Circuit did in 

Clorox.

Complaint Counsel “faces a difficult task” to show that the Trademark Settlements

“significantly harm competition as a whole”, see id. at 56, 57 (emphasis added), a burden they 

have not met here.24 The inquiry is not simply whether the Trademark Settlements limited 

competition; some impact on competition is acceptable as a predictable result of the trademark 

policy, as the Clorox court addressed directly:

It may well be that the restrictions in the [trademark settlement] 

agreement prevent Clorox from competing as effectively as it 

otherwise might. . . . The antitrust laws do not guarantee 

competitors the right to compete free of encumbrances, however, 

so long as competition as a whole is not significantly affected. . . . 

[T]he fact that Clorox can still compete despite the [trademark 

settlement] Agreement, and that numerous other companies are 

also capable of competing against Reckitt, seriously undermines 

Clorox’s [antitrust] claim.

Id. at 59 (citations omitted). The limited advertising restrictions contained in the Trademark 

Settlements may well prevent 1-800 Contacts and the counterparties to the Trademark 

Settlements from competing free of encumbrances. The record reflects that competitors’ 

advertisements may be less effective without the use of 1-800 Contacts’ trademarks. But these 

restrictions do not significantly affect competition as a whole because the counterparties to the 

Trademark Settlements are still capable of competing against 1-800 Contacts—including by 

selling to whomever they wish, advertising aggressively, and even buying advertisements on 

 

23 As discussed below, see Section II(A)(4)(a), infra, I disagree with the majority’s characterization of the 

Trademark Settlements as “unusual”. See Op. at 13-14. The Trademark Settlements, much like the agreement at 

issue in Clorox, “merely regulate[ ] the way a competitor can use a competing mark.” Clorox, 117 F.3d at 55-56. 

The majority do not dispute that bidding on a trademarked keyword constitutes a “use” under the Lanham Act. In 

addition, the Second Circuit in Clorox held that courts should give “substantial weight” to the scope of agreements 

settling trademark infringement litigation. Id. at 60.

24 Even if the majority were correct that the Trademark Settlements constitute a naked restraint of trade, they still 

may not be anticompetitive. As a leading antitrust treatise noted, “even a ‘naked’ horizontal market-division 

agreement is competitively harmless if it occurs in a competitive market in which the defendants are merely a few 

among several serious players or if the restraint does not suggest a significant potential for reducing marketwide 

output.” PHILLIP E. AREEDA & HERBERT HOVENKAMP, ANTITRUST LAW, ¶ 2046(b)(4) (emphasis added) (discussing 

Clorox as an example that fits this general statement). The market for the retail sale of contact lenses is clearly 

competitive and, according to Judge Chappell, “Complaint Counsel does not contend that the Challenged 

Agreements reduced the output of contact lenses.” ID at 153 n.36.
19

search engines, just not all advertisements—as are numerous other sellers of contact lenses, 

including other online retailers (e.g., Lens.com), independent eye care professionals (“ECPs”), 

optical retail chains (e.g., Visionworks), mass merchants (e.g., JCPenny), and club stores (e.g., 

Costco).

25 To paraphrase the Clorox court, the fact that the counterparties can still compete 

despite the Trademark Settlements, and that numerous other companies are also capable of 

competing against 1-800 Contacts, seriously undermines Complaint Counsel’s claim.

c) The Majority Fail to Distinguish Clorox.

Clorox is the most directly applicable precedent, and the majority’s attempts to 

distinguish it are not convincing. They point to the purported strength of the trademark 

infringement claim in Clorox, contrasting it with what they believe were weak claims asserted by 

1-800 Contacts. See Op. at 26-27. As discussed below (see Section II(A)(4)(a), infra), precedent, 

both parties in this case, the ALJ, and good policy all counsel against the Commission 

substituting its own view of the quality of non-sham intellectual property infringement claims for 

the business judgment of the contracting parties.26 Even if the majority’s assessment of 1-800 

Contacts’ infringement claims were accurate, Clorox remains applicable for at least two reasons. 

First, the Clorox court made clear that its rule applied even to weak trademark claims. Clorox, 

117 F.3d at 57 (noting that its analysis should apply “[e]ven if [a settlement] agreement only 

marginally advances trademark policies”). Second, as authoritative antitrust commentators have 

noted, the trademark claims at issue in Clorox were, in fact, not strong at all. The authors of one 

prominent treatise questioned “whether the Pine-Sol name manifested a confusing similarity to 

the older Lysol name”, noting that the Patent and Trademark Office examiner’s conclusion that 

the marks were similar was “somewhat dubious”. PHILLIP E. AREEDA & HERBERT HOVENKAMP,

ANTITRUST LAW: AN ANALYSIS OF ANTITRUST PRINCIPLES AND THEIR APPLICATION,

¶ 2046(b)(4) (2018).

The majority also distinguish Clorox as involving only two competitors, whereas the 

“Challenged Agreements covered 14 different online contact-lens retailers that account for 79 

percent of online contact lenses in the United States” and “cover the landscape of online contactlens retailers”.27 Op. at 33. In the absence of a properly defined relevant product market (see

Section II(D), infra), however, neither the numerosity of the Trademark Settlements nor what 

portion of “online contact-lens retailers” they cover is meaningful—it is far from clear, in other 

words, that settlements with fourteen companies here are meaningfully different from the one 

settlement involving two companies at issue in Clorox. The record reflects that sales by online 

retailers account for only 17% of total contact lens sales in the United States, IDF 491, and the 

 

25 The majority have not defined a relevant product market (see Section II(D), infra), so they cannot claim that 

competition from companies other than the pure play online retailers do not compete directly with 1-800 Contacts.

26 Consider the converse: a trademark infringement claim that everyone agrees is strong. Would Clorox then apply? 

If so, then the majority appears willing to put the factual cart (claim strength) before the analytical horse (inherently 

suspect). And, if Clorox still would not apply, would the majority deem “inherently suspect” a settlement of an 

unquestionably strong trademark infringement claim?

27 This portion of the majority opinion is just one of the several instances in which the majority inappropriately 

group the Luxottica Agreement in with the Trademark Settlements. See Section III, infra; see also Op. at 10 

(defining the term “Challenged Agreements” to encompass the Trademark Settlements and the Luxottica 

Agreement).
20

Trademark Settlements do not include certain large online sellers, such as Lens.com, that account 

for at least 21 percent of online sales. See Op. at 8, 33. If the majority believe that there is some 

smaller relevant market in which 1-800 Contacts has market power, they should define that 

market.

The majority go on to argue that “[p]redictably, Clorox was unable to muster much 

evidence of consumer harm.” Id. at 33. But they focus on the wrong reason that the lack of such 

evidence was predictable. The Second Circuit in Clorox noted the consensus that “trademarks are 

by their nature non-exclusionary” because “unlike other intellectual property rights, [a 

trademark] does not confer a legal monopoly on any good or idea”. Clorox, 117 F.3d at 56. 

Trademark owners cannot prevent others from manufacturing and selling identical goods under a 

different mark and, as a result, “the opportunity for effective antitrust misuse of a trademark, as 

distinguished from collateral anti-competitive activities on the part of the manufacturer or seller 

of the goods bearing the mark, is so limited that it poses a far less serious threat to the economic 

health of the nation.” Id. (quoting Carl Zeiss Stiftung v. V.E.B. Carl Zeiss, Jena, 298 F. Supp. 

1309, 1314 (S.D.N.Y. 1969), aff’d in relevant part, 433 F.2d 686 (2d Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 

403 U.S. 905 (1971); and citing McCarthy 4th Edition, § 31:96). Thus, the difficulty of showing 

harm was not specific to Clorox and it is not specific to this case;28 rather, it applies to trademark 

cases generally.

Contrary to Clorox, and citing Actavis, the majority believe that the Commission should 

second guess the form and scope of all settlements of trademark infringement litigation. See Op. 

at 33-34. This approach misses the mark in two important ways. First, the record reflects that 

non-use agreements are standard means of settling trademark disputes, see RX0734 (Hogan 

Expert Report) at 096, and bidding on trademark terms as keywords is a recognized “use in 

commerce” under the Lanham Act, see, e.g., Rescuecom, 562 F.3d at 127, 129-30. Second, it was 

the form of the settlement in Actavis—namely the splitting of monopoly profits among the 

settling parties to the detriment of consumers—that led the Court to open the door to liability.

See Actavis, 570 U.S. at 153-56. The Trademark Settlements include no splitting of monopoly 

profit—indeed, no material amount of money changed hands. See Section I(C)(2), supra. Nor, 

again, are they associated with the kind of conduct—price fixing, etc.—that has raised the 

suspicion of courts. See Section II(A)(2), supra.

According to the majority, Clorox involved labeling and, therefore, is not applicable here.

See Op. at 14 (citing Clorox, 117 F.3d at 57); see also Draft Oral Arg. Tr. 43:19-44:6 (Complaint 

Counsel asserting that Clorox “was a case about labeling.”). The majority cite no case for the 

proposition that, for trademark law purposes, labeling and advertising are categorically different, 

nor am I aware of any. Courts apply the same fact-specific test to determine the likelihood of 

customer confusion regardless of whether the use of the trademark was on a label or in an 

advertisement. See, e.g., Pom Wonderful LLC v. Hubbard, 775 F.3d 1118, 1125-31 & n.7 (9th 

Cir. 2014) (analyzing both “labels and advertising materials” under the eight-factor test for 

likelihood of customer confusion developed in AMF Inc. v. Sleekcraft Boats, 599 F.2d 341, 348-

49 (9th Cir. 1979), abrogated on other grounds by Mattel Inc. v. Walking Mountain Prods., 353 

F.3d 792, 810 n.19 (9th Cir. 2003)). Leaving aside the law and considering the facts, the non-use 

 

28 As discussed below, I do not believe Complaint Counsel has met its burden to show direct anticompetitive effects 

in this case. See Section II(B), infra.
21

agreement in Clorox operated in a manner similar to the Trademark Settlements, which 

themselves are a type of non-use agreement. The non-use agreement at issue in Clorox did not 

restrict Clorox or other firms from producing and selling products in direct competition with the 

Lysol brand as long as Clorox did not put the name “Pine-Sol” on those products. Op. at 14. 

And, likewise, the Trademark Settlements do not “in any way restrict [the other online contact 

lens retailers] from producing and selling products that compete directly with the [1-800 

Contacts] brand,” so long as they do not advertise in response to searches for 1-800 Contacts’ 

trademarks. See Clorox, 117 F.3d at 57. That is a critical distinction under California Dental, 

because it demonstrates how price signals can continue to reach the market, making the link 

between the restraints and any price effect attenuated.

It also bears repeating that the Second Circuit in Clorox stated that the form and scope of 

trademark settlement agreements deserve “substantial weight” because the settling parties “are in 

the best position to determine what protections are needed” and “it is usually unwise for courts to 

second-guess such decisions.” Id. at 60. Thus, even if the form or effect of the Trademark 

Settlements differed substantially from those at issue in Clorox, the Commission should give the 

parties’ desired means of settlement deference because of the property right at issue and the 

absence of an auxiliary illegal agreement. Id.

4. The Majority’s Rule Will Have Negative Consequences.

Treating the Trademark Settlements as “inherently suspect” yields an unclear rule that, 

regardless of interpretation, will, I fear, create uncertainty, dilute trademark rights, and dampen 

inter-brand competition. The majority couch their holding as a limited one dealing with restraints 

on the opportunity to make price comparisons, but, by adopting an analytical framework without 

accounting for the intellectual property at issue, they produce one of the following rules: either 

all advertising restrictions are inherently suspect, regardless whether they protect intellectual 

property rights, or the level of scrutiny applied to a particular restraint will depend on the 

strength of the trademark holder’s underlying infringement claim.

The majority make it clear that they do not intend to label all advertising restrictions 

“inherently suspect”, see Op. at 22, but several parts of their analysis suggest precisely such a 

conclusion. First, their determination that the Trademark Settlements are “inherently suspect” 

avoids any mention whatsoever of trademarks. See id. at 18-22. The majority rely heavily upon 

Polygram, but untether the advertising ban from the ban on discounting that led the D.C. Circuit 

to find liability. So the assertion stands alone, regardless of the existence of intellectual property. 

Second, the majority rely on precedents that do not involve trademarks, or intellectual property 

of any kind, and dismisses the one case—Clorox—that looks at a trademark settlement through 

the lens of antitrust law. In doing, they effectively declare that any advertising restraint is 

“inherently suspect”, regardless whether such restraint is intended or necessary to protect 

intellectual property.29 The majority cast this case as unique because the Trademark Settlements 

reduced the opportunity of some consumers to see some advertisements sometimes, but this 

description has no apparent limiting principle. Advertising is designed to grab attention, 

 

29 For instance, the majority assert that “[r]estricting the availability of truthful information that guides consumer 

decisions in the marketplace is a competitive harm.” Op. at 43.
22

including through the use (or misuse) of trademarks. All of this raises a serious concern that the 

rule the majority today promulgates (i) is overbroad and (ii) will reach procompetitive conduct.

Because the majority explicitly eschew a rule condemning all advertising restrictions, 

regardless whether they protect intellectual property rights, their reasoning suggests a rule under 

which the standard of review depends on (the Commission’s view of) the strength of the 

underlying trademark infringement claim. For infringement claims that the Commission deems 

weak or implausible, the challenged restraint will be deemed “inherently suspect”. This approach 

leaves open the question of how the majority would treat infringement claims that they believe 

are strong. Such a rule would put the factual cart ahead of the analytical horse, is wrong as a 

matter of law, and will require the Commission to litigate (or re-litigate) the underlying 

infringement claim—in every case—to determine what standard of review it will apply. That is 

precisely what happened here.

a) The Commission Should Not Litigate Inherently Fact-Intensive

Infringement Claims.

The majority claim that they are not evaluating the underlying infringement claims. See

Op. at 40 (“We are neither deciding matters of trademark law nor suggesting that to determine 

whether the Challenged Agreements unreasonably restrain competition, we need to conduct a 

mini-trial on the merits of the underlying trademark litigations.”). But that is not the approach 

reflected in their opinion. Instead of following Clorox and according trademarks their 

appropriate weight, the majority rest several key conclusions on the premise that 1-800 Contacts’ 

underlying trademark infringement claims were weak. The majority:

• Ignore the presence of 1-800 Contacts’ intellectual property in their “inherently 

suspect” analysis, see id. at 18-22;

• Opine that customer confusion—part of 1-800 Contacts’ trademark infringement 

claims—is not at issue when evaluating 1-800 Contacts’ procompetitive 

justifications, see id. at 27;

• Distinguish Clorox based on a value judgment that the trademark infringement 

claims at issue in that case were somehow stronger than 1-800 Contacts’ 

infringement claims, see id. at 26-27;

• Dismiss 1-800 Contacts’ trademark infringement claims based on an abbreviated 

evaluation of consumer confusion,30 which is a deeply factual issue, see id. at 28-

29; and

• Reject 1-800 Contacts’ trademark-related procompetitive justification based on 

their view of the strength of the underlying infringement claims, see id. at 37-40

& n.42.

 

30 The majority claim that their opinion does not hinge on the merits of the trademark infringement claim. Op. at 28 

n.27. As this section demonstrates, the majority’s view of the strength of 1-800 Contacts’ infringement claims 

permeates their opinion. To the extent their opinion also applies to settlements of “strong” infringement claims, the 

majority do not answer the question of what standard would apply, or how that fact would bear on the analysis of a 

respondent’s procompetitive justifications.
23

The majority do all of this notwithstanding the universal agreement (from the ALJ, 

Complaint Counsel, and Respondent) that evaluating the relative strength of 1-800 Contacts’ 

infringement claims is unnecessary, improper, or both. ID at 171 (“[D]elving into the merits of 

13 trademark lawsuits, after the fact, to determine whether or not 1-800 Contacts could 

ultimately have proven infringement, if even possible, would require unacceptable speculation 

and would constitute an unnecessary waste of judicial resources.”) (citing In re Schering-Plough 

Corp. (“Schering-Plough I”), 136 F.T.C. 956, 997 (2003), vacated on other grounds sub nom., 

Schering-Plough Corp. v. FTC (“Schering-Plough II”), 402 F.3d 1056 (11th Cir. 2005), cert. 

denied, 548 U.S. 919 (2006)); Draft Oral Arg. Tr. 49:5-13 (Complaint Counsel stating that “[i]t 

does not make a whit of difference whether 1-800 Contacts would have lost or won every single 

case it brought.”); id. at 59:14-23 (Complaint Counsel explaining why “we don’t need to 

evaluate the merits of the trademark claim”); RAB at 37-38. The reason the parties agree on this 

is clear: both precedent and sound policy counsel against having antitrust liability turn on ex post 

fact-intensive inquiries into the validity of non-sham intellectual property infringement claims.

See Schering-Plough I, 136 F.T.C. at 997 (“An after-the-fact inquiry by the Commission into the 

merits of the underlying litigation is not only unlikely to be particularly helpful, but also likely to 

be unreliable.”). Complaint Counsel has taken a similar position in other litigation. See, e.g., 

Reply Brief for the Petitioner at 6, Actavis, 570 U.S. 136 (No. 12-416) (“We agree that the 

antitrust analysis of a Hatch-Waxman [reverse payment] settlement should not turn on a judicial 

assessment of the strength or scope of the particular patent involved in the case.”) (emphasis in 

original).

Actavis makes it clear that the Commission should not be in the business of evaluating 

the underlying infringement case when deciding an antitrust challenge; indeed, the Actavis Court 

explicitly declined do so. See Actavis, 570 U.S. at 159 (“To say this is not to require the courts to 

insist . . . that the Commission need litigate the patent’s validity”); id. at 158 (“[A] court, by 

examining the size of the payment, may well be able to assess its likely anticompetitive effects 

along with its potential justifications without litigating the validity of the patent”) (emphasis 

added); id. at 153 (recognizing “the patent litigation problem”). The Court’s willingness to 

subject the reverse payment settlements to rule-of-reason analysis stemmed not from the 

underlying merits but from the “unusual” nature of the settlements, including large payments by 

the plaintiff-branded pharmaceutical manufacturer to the defendant-generic pharmaceutical 

manufacturer in exchange for the generic staying out of the market entirely, which kept prices 

high while the brand and generic manufacturers split the monopoly profits. See id. at 154. The 

Trademark Settlements are nothing like that: no material amount of money changed hands, so the 

settling parties did not divide monopoly profits at the expense of the consumer, and, most 

importantly for the present case, no supplier of contact lenses agreed to stay out of the market.

31

The general rule of not evaluating the merits of non-sham intellectual property claims is 

particularly apropos in the trademark infringement context because the legal issues generally—

and customer confusion in particular—involve fact-specific inquiries that should be decided by a 

 

31 The majority claim that the Trademark Settlements are likewise “unusual” because they “reach[ ] farther than a 

cure based on rewording a label or an ad”. Op. at 14. As Clorox—the case the majority cite for this proposition—

makes clear, even aggressive assertions of trademark rights are procompetitive. Clorox 117 F.3d at 60-61. A 

standard non-use restriction that goes farther than an ex post proposed remedy does not take us out of that category, 

much less provide a basis for antitrust liability.
24

judge or jury. As the Fourth Circuit held in a case that also involved alleged trademark 

infringement caused by paid keyword search advertising, “the likelihood of confusion issue . . . 

is ‘an inherently factual issue that depends on the facts and circumstances in each case.’” Rosetta 

Stone Ltd. v. Google, Inc., 676 F.3d 144, 153 (4th Cir. 2012) (quoting Lone Star Steakhouse & 

Saloon, Inc. v. Alpha of Va., Inc., 43 F.3d 922, 933 (4th Cir. 1995)); see also Hearts on Fire Co., 

LLC v. Blue Nile, Inc., 603 F. Supp. 2d 274, 288 (D. Mass. 2009) (refusing to grant the 

defendant’s motion to dismiss because where “a plaintiff has alleged a plausible likelihood of 

confusion based on the overall context in which a consumer performs his internet search, he has 

stated a claim for trademark infringement and may proceed on an initial interest theory.”)

(internal reference omitted); Fair Isaac Corp. v. Experian Info. Solutions Inc., 645 F. Supp. 2d 

734, 761 (D. Minn. 2009) (refusing to grant summary judgment because “genuine issues of 

material fact” remained regarding “whether Defendants’ purchase of keywords including 

[Plaintiff]’s trademarks, which caused Defendants’ websites to appear on the results page when a 

consumer ran an internet search consisting of those keywords, created a likelihood of 

confusion”), aff’d on other grounds, 650 F.3d 1139 (8th Cir. 2011); Soilworks, LLC v. Midwest 

Indus. Supply, Inc., 575 F. Supp. 2d 1118, 1132 (D. Ariz. 2008) (granting summary judgment on 

mark owner’s trademark infringement counterclaim because “the undisputed evidence in this 

case establishes that [the counterclaim-defendant] diverts the initial attention of potential Internet 

customers to its websites by using [the counterclaim-plaintiff’s] trademark in keywords and 

metatags.”).

Although the Commission should not evaluate the underlying infringement claim, the 

majority overstates the clarity of trademark law at the time of the Trademark Settlements. The 

record reflects that the parties entered the Trademark Settlements precisely because of the 

possibility that bidding on trademarked terms as keywords created liability for infringement, a 

reality exacerbated by the Rescuecom decision. See, e.g., IDF 333, 349; Holbrook, Tr. 1942:12-

13; CX9024 at 017 (Holbrook Dep. 63:13-18); Hogan, Tr. 3256:11-19, 3260:21-3261:4.

The majority also address Soilworks only in passing. See Op. at 38. In that case, a federal 

district court granted summary judgment because it found that the mark owner (Midwest) had 

met its burden to show that the use of its trademarks as keywords in paid search advertising and 

metatags by the alleged infringer (Soilworks) caused initial interest confusion.

32 Soilworks, 575 

F. Supp. 2d at 1132. The Soilworks court considered, inter alia, the similarity between the 

keyword purchased by the alleged infringer and the trademark, the relatedness of the goods sold 

 

32 The district court in Soilworks distinguished initial interest confusion from source confusion:

Although the core element of trademark infringement is whether the similarity of the marks is 

likely to confuse customers about the source of the products, the Ninth Circuit and other courts 

have recognized a variation of trademark infringement that does not require such confusion. Under 

the ‘initial interest confusion’ theory of trademark liability, ‘source confusion’ need not occur. 

Rather, initial interest confusion occurs when the defendant uses the plaintiff’s mark in a manner 

calculated to capture initial consumer attention. . . . When accomplished through the use of key 

words or metatags on the Internet, this wrongful conduct may involve no deception of the 

consumer. The consumer is simply led to the defendant’s website through the unseen keywords 

and metatags the defendant has purchased on the web.

Soilworks, 575 F. Supp. 2d at 1129-30, 1131 (internal quotation marks, alterations, citations, and footnotes 

omitted).
25

by the parties, and the marketing channels employed by the two companies.33 Id. at 1131. All of 

these factors would weigh in favor of a finding for 1-800 Contacts on a claim for initial interest 

confusion. And the district court’s holding in Soilworks could have applied equally to one of 

1-800 Contacts’ trademark infringement claims:

A person typing “soil sement” into a search engine presumably 

would be somewhat familiar with Midwest’s product and would be 

looking for the product or its maker, and yet would be directed by 

the keywords and metatags to Soilworks’ websites. The 

confusion—thinking one would be connected to Midwest when in 

fact Soilworks’ websites also appear in the search results—would 

entirely be caused by Soilworks’ use of Midwest’s mark.

Id. at 1132. The majority’s dismissal of Soilworks as “a single district court summary judgment 

decision from over ten years ago”, Op. at 38, fails to account for the fact that Soilworks was 

decided just ten months before the wave of Trademark Settlements that followed Rescuecom

began, and was therefore precisely the type of case that the settling parties would have 

considered at the time they entered the Trademark Settlements.

Like Rescuecom, Soilworks predated almost all of the Trademark Settlements. Those 

cases and other developments fed the legal uncertainty surrounding paid search advertising using 

trademarked keywords. Allegations of infringement based on trademark keyword bidding 

withstood dispositive motions. See id. at 38 & n.40.

34 And a judge could have ordered the same 

relief that is contained in the Trademark Settlements. See, e.g., RX0679 at 005. Indeed, multiple 

federal judges later did. IDF 337 (“The court’s order prohibited LensWorld from purchasing 

1-800 Contacts’ federally registered trademarks as keywords for any search engine advertising 

program and required LensWorld to implement certain negative keywords . . . where possible.”)

(citation and internal quotation marks omitted); CX0144; CX0162; Pratt, Tr. 2558:5-2559:4 

(discussing CX0162). The parties may not have taken as dim a view of 1-800 Contacts’ 

trademark infringement claims as the Commission does today. Cases on the books at the time of 

the Trademark Settlements suggested that using trademarked terms as keywords could constitute 

 

33 The district court also identified several other factors that other courts have used to evaluate consumer confusion, 

but found them “less relevant”, “of little import”, of “diminished importance”, “not directly relevant”, or “relatively 

unimportant” in the keyword/metatag context. Soilworks, 575 F. Supp. 2d at 1132 (citations omitted).

34 In addition to the cases cited by the majority, other infringement claims based on trademark keyword search 

advertising survived dispositive motions. See, e.g., Tokyo Broadcasting Sys. v. Am. Broadcasting Cos., Inc., No. 08-

cv-6550, 2009 WL 10668456, at *11 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 12, 2009); Gov’t Emps. Ins. Co. v. Google, Inc. (“GEICO”), 

330 F. Supp. 2d 700, 704 (E.D. Va. 2004).
26

infringement regardless of the content of the advertisement.

35 See, e.g., Playboy Enters., Inc. v. 

Netscape Commc’ns Corp., 354 F.3d 1020, 1024-26 (9th Cir. 2004) (keywords and metatags);

see also Brookfield Commc’ns, Inc. v. W. Coast Entm’t Corp., 174 F.3d 1036, 1057 (9th Cir. 

1999) (domain names and metatags).

At most, the majority have shown that the legal status of using trademarked terms as 

keywords in paid search advertising was uncertain. When the settling parties entered the 

Trademark Settlements, courts did not “consistently reject[ ] the notion that buying or creating 

internet search terms” did not constitute trademark infringement. See Op. at 38-39 (quoting 

Tempur-Pedic N. Am., LLC v. Mattress Firm, Inc., No. 17-1068, 2017 WL 2957912, at *7 (S.D. 

Tex. July 11, 2017)). To the contrary, most courts viewed trademark infringement and customer 

confusion in the context of paid search advertising as fact specific inquiries that should be 

decided by judges and juries. See, e.g., Gov’t Emps. Ins. Co. v. Google, Inc., 330 F. Supp. 2d 

700, 704 (E.D. Va. 2004). The risk of liability for trademark infringement became even more 

serious after the Second Circuit’s decision in Rescuecom. See Section I(C)(1), supra.

The complexity of the legal regime and the majority’s ex post determination of an 

inherently fact-specific question underscore the general rule that the Commission should not be 

in the business of litigating (or re-litigating) the underlying trademark infringement claim.

b) The Majority’s Approach Will Reduce Brand Investment Incentives.

Predicating antitrust liability on an ex post judgement about the strength of intellectual 

property infringement claims—or ignoring the context of their protection entirely—not only will 

reduce clarity in the law, but also threatens to chill the procompetitive investment that is one of 

the hallmarks of trademark law. As Complaint Counsel’s expert, Dr. Evans, put it:

Trademarks help companies convey information to consumers 

about themselves and their products. They enable companies, for 

example, to use a brand name to signal to consumers that the 

company provides a high quality product or offers particular 

attributes that consumers care about. Protecting trademark rights 

encourages investment in this sort of brand-building activity, 

which in turn generates valuable market information, promotes 

competition and ultimately benefits consumers. Moreover, 

trademark policy prevents the spread of misinformation as when a 

 

35 In a footnote, the majority cite a bevy of cases to support their claim that courts have consistently held that buying 

trademarked terms as keywords, standing alone, is insufficient to prove trademark infringement. See Op. at 39-40 

n.43. However, almost all of those cases postdated the Trademark Settlements, so they could not have factored into 

the parties’ decision to settle 1-800 Contacts’ trademark infringement claims. See id. The few cases cited by the 

majority that predated the Trademark Settlements show—at most—that the legal landscape was uncertain, and 

support the fundamental proposition that trademark infringement and customer confusion are inherently factspecific. See, e.g., GEICO, 330 F. Supp. 2d at 704 (“Whether defendant’s [trademark] uses . . . create a likelihood of 

confusion [is a] fact-specific issue[ ] not properly resolved through a motion to dismiss.”); Gov’t Emps. Ins. Co. v. 

Google, Inc., No. 04-cv-507, 2005 WL 1903128, at *4 (E.D. Va. Aug. 8, 2005) (“[T]he Fourth Circuit has 

emphasized that likelihood of confusion is a highly factual issue, the assessment of which depends largely on the 

particular circumstances of each case, . . . and that the likelihood of confusion standard does not require that a 

plaintiff prove actual confusion.”) (citations omitted).
27

company claims falsely that it produces the same brand of a 

competitor or tries to confuse consumers into thinking they do by 

using similar words.

CX8006 (Evans Expert Report) at 135. In other words, trademark protection gives companies an 

incentive to maintain their reputations and improve quality, which promotes competition. Park 

‘N Fly, Inc. v. Dollar Park and Fly, Inc., 469 U.S. 189, 193 (1985) (“[T]rademarks desirably 

promote competition and the maintenance of product quality”); William M. Landes & Richard 

A. Posner, Trademark Law: An Economic Perspective, 30 J.L. & ECON. 265, 269 (1987) 

(“[T]rademark protection encourages expenditures on quality”); J. Thomas McCarthy, McCarthy 

on Trademarks and Unfair Competition § 2:4 (5th ed. June 2018) [hereinafter “McCarthy 5th 

Edition”].

Competition is not the only benefit of trademark protection; by encouraging brand 

investment, it also fosters innovation and gives more information to customers. See, e.g., Landes 

& Posner, supra, at 269 (“In short, a trademark conveys information that allows the consumer to 

say to himself, ‘I need not investigate the attributes of the brand I am about to purchase because 

the trademark is a shorthand way of telling me that the attributes are the same as that of the brand 

I enjoyed earlier.’”) (footnote omitted). “An important purpose underlying trademark law is the 

protection of the trademark owner’s investment in the quality of the mark and the quality of the 

goods or services the mark identifies. . . . ‘By contrast, if there were no trademarks . . . a 

manufacturer would gain little or nothing from improving his product’s quality. . . . The result 

would be a race to produce inferior products, rather than competition to produce better ones.’” 

McCarthy 5th Edition, supra, § 2:4 (quoting Richard Craswell, FTC Policy Planning Issues 

Paper: Trademarks, Consumer Information and Barriers to Competition, at 7 (1979)).

The procompetitive benefits of trademarks are precisely why courts like the Second 

Circuit have encouraged zealous trademark enforcement, and declined to impose upon mark 

owners the fear of treble antitrust damages. See, e.g., Clorox, 117 F.3d at 61 (“Efforts to protect 

trademarks, even aggressive ones, serve the competitive purpose of furthering trademark 

policies.”); Drop Dead Co. v. S. C. Johnson & Son, Inc., 326 F.2d 87, 96 (9th Cir. 1963) (“[T]he 

bringing of infringement suits based on colorable similarity rather than on exact identity . . .

constitute[s] the sort of aggressive competition and promotion that anti-trust law seeks to 

protect”), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 907 (1964); see also Car-Freshner Corp. v. Auto Aid Mfg. 

Corp., 438 F. Supp. 82, 87 (N.D.N.Y. 1977) (“[T]he acts of the plaintiffs in registering and 

enforcing the trademark in issue . . . merely represent fair and aggressive competition which does 

not constitute a violation of the antitrust laws”) (citation omitted). Zealous protection is precisely 

what 1-800 Contacts did here.

The crux of the majority’s antitrust story underscores the point. The search engine results 

pages that appear in response to searches for “1-800 Contacts” were the supposed “critical 

battleground”36 for competition precisely—and only—because of 1-800 Contacts’ brand

investment. See, e.g., CX9033 at 017 (Mohan Dep. 61:9-12); CX9039 at 026, 040 (Clarkson 

 

36 Draft Oral Arg. Tr. 39:20-22; see also Op. at 14, 30, 32, 34 (describing the search engine results pages displayed 

in response to searches for 1-800 Contacts’ trademarked terms as the “key moment” or “crucial moment” of 

competition).
28

Dep. 97:20-98:3, 155:25-156:8). In other words, 1-800 Contacts engaged in the type of brand 

investment envisioned by trademark policy, and, combined with its excellent service and 

constant efforts to improve the customer experience, built a brand that customers trust. The 

company then sought zealously to protect its brand.

Assigning liability—and the potential for treble damages, no less—to this conduct will 

not only chill brand investment, it will chill the very competition the majority seeks to protect.

c) The Policy Favoring Litigation Settlements Supports Application of the 

Traditional Rule of Reason.

Trademark policy is not the only one at stake. “Few public policies are as well 

established as the principle that courts should favor voluntary settlements of litigation by the 

parties to a dispute.” Am. Sec. Vanlines, Inc. v. Gallagher, 782 F.2d 1056, 1060 (D.C. Cir. 1986)

(citations omitted); accord Williams v. First Nat’l Bank of Pauls Valley, 216 U.S. 582, 595

(1910); St. Louis Mining & Milling Co. v. Montana Mining Co., 171 U.S. 650, 656 (1898); TBK 

Partners, Ltd. v. W. Union Corp., 675 F.2d 456, 461 (2d Cir. 1982). That is because settlements 

of complex litigation allow the settling parties to avoid “a litany of direct and indirect costs”.

Schering-Plough II, 402 F.3d at 1075. Consistent with this precedent, both parties’ experts 

agreed that settlements are economically efficient. See CX9042 at 050 (Evans Dep. 196:22-24); 

RX0739 (Murphy Expert Report) at 053; Murphy, Tr. 4207:22-4208:25; RX0737 (Landes 

Expert Report) at 017.

The majority’s rule effectively makes non-use agreements—the most common means of 

settling trademark infringement litigation,

37 and favored in their own right on policy grounds38—

“inherently suspect”, opening the door to reviewing and/or litigating many more trademark 

settlements. This will increase the risk of settling trademark infringement litigation, which is 

efficient in part because it reduces risk. This is particularly so where, as here, the real issue is the 

highly fact-specific question of confusion. The Second Circuit explained the point in Clorox:

[T]rademark agreements are favored in the law as a means by 

which parties agree to market products in a way that reduces the 

likelihood of consumer confusion and avoids time-consuming 

litigation. Parties such as Clorox, Sterling, and their predecessors, 

are in a position to structure such agreements in the way that the 

parties believe best accommodates their interests in light of 

trademark law. Accordingly, in the absence of any evidence that 

the provisions relating to trademark protection are auxiliary to an 

underlying illegal agreement between competitors—such as the 

territorial market division condemned in Timken [Roller Bearing 

Co. v. U.S., 341 U.S. 593 (1951)]—and absent exceptional 

circumstances, we believe the parties’ determination of the scope 

of needed trademark protections is entitled to substantial weight. 

 

37 See RX0734 (Hogan Expert Report) at 096.

38 Trademark non-use agreements are “usually entered into to settle an infringement dispute”, are “not against public 

policy”, and “are routinely upheld and enforced.” McCarthy 5th Edition, supra, § 18:82 (footnote omitted).
29

At the time of the execution of such an agreement, the parties are 

in the best position to determine what protections are needed and 

how to resolve disputes concerning earlier trademark agreements 

between themselves. . . . In the absence of evidence to the contrary 

it is reasonable to presume that such arms-length agreements are 

pro-competitive.

Clorox, 117 F.3d at 60.

39

A rule requiring the post hoc evaluation of intellectual property infringement claims will 

be difficult for us to apply, but also, and more importantly, for private parties to self-administer. 

What level of infringement confidence is required? Are plaintiffs only allowed to settle 

trademark infringement claims that they know they are going to win? That certainly can’t be the 

standard. Regardless, we are ill-equipped to judge. Clarity may only result from substantial 

litigation that follows the majority’s opinion, animated by the prospect of treble damages.

B. The Evidence That the Trademark Settlements Had Direct Anticompetitive 

Effects Is Insufficient.

If the Trademark Settlements are not “inherently suspect”, which they are not, Complaint 

Counsel can meet their initial burden of proof under the rule of reason in one of two ways: “an 

indirect showing based on a demonstration of defendant’s market power” or “direct evidence of 

‘actual, sustained adverse effects on competition’”. Realcomp I, 2007 WL 6936319, at *31 

(quoting FTC v. Indiana Federation of Dentists (“IFD”), 476 U.S. 447, 461 (1986)) (other 

citations omitted). The majority take only the direct approach; they do not attempt an indirect 

showing of market power. See Section II(D), infra. To meet the initial burden of proof with 

direct evidence, a plaintiff must show adverse effects on competition that are actual, sustained, 

and significant or substantial. See Realcomp I, 2007 WL 6936319, at *31; Op. at 17 (“[T]he 

plaintiff has the burden to prove that the challenged restraint has, or is likely to have, a 

substantial anticompetitive effect that harms consumers.”); Ohio v. Am. Express Co. (“AmEx”), 

138 S. Ct. 2274, 2284 (2018) (“Under [the rule of reason] framework, the plaintiff has the initial 

 

39 The Ninth Circuit rejected a challenge to a trademark settlement agreement for similar reasons:

If the merits of a cause of action underlying a [trademark] compromise agreement could, as a 

matter of course, be inquired into in an action to enforce the settlement, neither settlement nor the 

policies it promotes would be fostered. The parties would be subjected to the expense, delay, and 

uncertainty they sought to avoid through settlement; the court would be burdened with trial of the 

underlying dispute and the preparation which precedes it.

MWS Wire Indus., Inc. v. Cal. Fine Wire Co., Inc., 797 F.2d 799, 802 (9th Cir. 1986); see also T & T Mfg. 

Co. v. A. T. Cross Co., 449 F. Supp. 813, 827 (D.R.I. 1978) (“[T]he Court must balance the public interest 

against confusion, one of the significant purposes of trademark law, against the interest in enforcing 

contracts and protecting the reliance they induce. [¶] The Court must also add into this balance the interest 

in encouraging extra-judicial settlement of trademark litigation. Insisting that a court review a settlement to 

assure that no public confusion will result would make such agreements of little value to the parties. Parties 

would sensibly conclude that they might better litigate the issue of confusion to conclusion rather than 

reach a settlement which might later be found to be unenforceable. Such a premium on litigation would 

lead to a further drain on judicial resources. Moreover, we note the advantage of allowing business persons 

to determine whether their self-interest is better served by making such contracts or not.”) (emphasis 

added), aff’d, 587 F.2d 533 (1st Cir. 1978), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 908 (1979).
30

burden to prove that the challenged restraint has a substantial anticompetitive effect that harms 

consumers”); Realcomp II, 635 F.3d at 831-32 (“substantial consumer harm”); Clorox, 117 F.3d 

at 57 (requiring the plaintiff to show that the trademark settlement agreement “may significantly

harm competition as a whole”). Complaint Counsel have not met that burden with its showing on 

direct effects.

1. In the Context of a Trademark Settlement Agreement, a Restriction on 

Advertising Is, by Itself, Insufficient to Show Direct Effects.

The majority first argue that Complaint Counsel established direct effects by showing 

that advertising was limited by the Trademark Settlements. But the Supreme Court held in 

California Dental that restrictions on advertising, by themselves, are insufficient to show 

anticompetitive harm.

40 See Cal. Dental, 526 U.S. at 776. The relevant inquiry is whether an 

advertising restriction limited output of the underlying product or service. See id. (“The question 

is not whether the universe of possible advertisements has been limited (as assuredly it has), but 

whether the limitation on advertisements obviously tends to limit [output of the underlying 

product or service].”).

Other than California Dental, the only cases cited by the majority for the proposition that 

a reduction in advertising, by itself, is sufficient to show direct effects are Indiana Federation of 

Dentists (“IFD”) and Realcomp, see Op. at 42-43, neither of which supports that proposition. 

Indeed, neither case involved advertising, a point the majority apparently concede. See id. at 43.

The majority rely on IFD for the proposition that a concerted effort to withhold 

“information”—a broad and nebulous category—constitutes a competitive harm and, therefore, 

any limitation on “information” constitutes direct evidence of anticompetitive effects. See id. at 

42-43, 46 n.49. They misread the case. In IFD, the Supreme Court considered “a horizontal 

agreement among the participating dentists to withhold from their customers a particular service

that they desire”, specifically, providing x-rays to insurers. IFD, 476 U.S. at 459. Thus, IFD is a 

case about agreeing not to provide a service, not about information or advertising. The 

Commission and the D.C. Circuit recognized as much in Polygram. See Polygram I, 136 F.T.C. 

at 335 (describing the restraint at issue in IFD as “an agreement among dentists to withhold from 

their customers a desired service”); Polygram II, 416 F.3d at 36 (“[I]n IFD, the Supreme Court 

ruled a horizontal agreement to withhold services could not be sustained”). As did the Supreme 

Court in California Dental, see Cal. Dental, 526 U.S. at 770, and other courts in the years since 

IFD. See, e.g., Major League Baseball Props., Inc. v. Salvino, Inc., 542 F.3d 290, 317 (2d Cir. 

2008); Int’l Healthcare Mgmt. v. Hawaii Coal. for Health, 332 F.3d 600, 606 (9th Cir. 2003).

Even assuming the majority’s categorization of IFD were accurate (which it is not), nothing in 

IFD supports a finding that all restrictions on information (much less advertising), standing 

 

40 As discussed above, the majority’s attempts to distinguish California Dental fail. See Section II(A)(2)(a)(i), supra.
31

alone, constitute direct evidence of anticompetitive effects.41 The defendant in IFD implemented 

an outright ban on providing x-rays to dental insurers, whereas the Trademark Settlements 

merely raise the search costs (marginally) to a certain set of customers for information still very 

much available.

The majority’s reliance on Realcomp as an “information” restraint case is similarly 

misplaced. See Op. at 43. The conduct at issue there was a policy that prohibited the 

dissemination of property listing information to competitors through Realcomp’s multiple listing 

services (“MLS”). Realcomp II, 635 F.3d at 819. This prevented competing realtors from 

offering listings (i.e., their product) to their customers. See id. In other words, the restraint

foreclosed access to a necessary input and directly reduced downstream output, see Realcomp I, 

2007 WL 6936319 at *25, “restrict[ing] the ability of members to offer consumers products that 

create ‘price pressure’ on more expensive products”, id. at *5. The restraint limited output, not 

advertising, so the anticompetitive effect (i.e., a reduction in output) was obvious. See Realcomp 

II, 635 F.3d at 829-30. Realcomp cannot support a finding that reductions in advertising or 

information, without a concomitant reduction in output, constitute direct anticompetitive effects.

According to the majority, any restriction on truthful advertising—indeed, even less, the 

restriction of truthful information that might impede a consumer’s ability to discover a lower 

price—constitutes direct evidence of anticompetitive harm. See, e.g., Op. at 43 (“Restricting the 

availability of truthful information that guides consumer decisions in the marketplace is a 

competitive harm.”). If all a plaintiff need show to establish direct effects is the existence of a 

restriction on advertising—regardless of justification, size, or effect—then all limits on truthful 

advertising are, effectively, inherently suspect, a result the majority specifically disclaim.42 See

id. at 22. And they must, as such a rule would inevitably treat conduct that would otherwise be 

considered competitively neutral or even procompetitive as presumptively illegal. See, e.g., Cal. 

Dental, 526 U.S. at 771 (“[I]t seems to us that the [California Dental Association]’s advertising 

restrictions might plausibly be thought to have a net procompetitive effect, or possibly no effect 

at all on competition.”). A trademark non-use agreement that applies to advertising is just one 

example.

As a matter of law, then, the majority’s attempt to establish direct effects by looking only 

at advertising fails. It also fails as a matter of fact. While advertisements in response to 

competitors’ trademarked search terms were limited, the majority fail to establish that the 

amount of advertising was reduced. See Section II(E), infra.

 

41 Even the portion of IFD quoted by the majority does not support their position. See Op. at 43 (“As the Supreme 

Court explained in IFD, ‘a concerted and effective effort to withhold (or make more costly) information desired by 

consumers for the purpose of determining whether a particular purchase is cost justified is likely enough to disrupt 

the proper functioning of the price setting mechanism of the market that it may be condemned even absent proof that 

it resulted in higher prices or . . . the purchase of higher priced services than would occur in its absence.’”) (quoting 

IFD, 476 U.S. at 461-62). The x-rays at issue allowed insurers to assess the appropriateness of claims for benefits.

IFD, 476 U.S. at 455. There is no similar category of information withheld here.

42 Analytically, categorizing conduct as “inherently suspect” has the same result as holding that direct effects inhere 

in it. If the Trademark Settlements are inherently suspect, then it is hard to imagine what advertising restrictions 

would not be inherently suspect.
32

2. There Is Insufficient Evidence of Direct Price Effects.

While restrictions on advertising are not themselves enough, the majority are correct that 

a showing of actual, sustained, and substantial or significant price effects would suffice. See, 

e.g., AmEx, 138 S. Ct. at 2284; Realcomp II, 635 F.3d at 831-32; Clorox, 117 F.3d at 57; 

Realcomp I, 2007 WL 6936319, at *31; Op. at 17. I disagree that Complaint Counsel have met 

that burden here.

The majority’s finding of direct price effects rests almost entirely on the unremarkable 

fact that 1-800 Contacts’ prices were higher than some of its competitors’ prices. See Op. at 46-

47. The majority find that “the higher prices are a consequence of 1-800 Contacts shielding itself 

from competitive pressure by preventing consumers from obtaining information that would

enable comparison shopping.” Id. at 47. But Complaint Counsel failed to prove that the 

Trademark Settlements caused the price differential.

First, the record is clear that that price differential predated the Trademark Settlements. 

See, e.g., id. at 46; CX9001 at 021 (Bethers IH 79:23-80:8) (“[W]e were never trying to compete 

with our online competitors on price. We basically came back and said our online competitors 

are going to have lower prices than we do. And they did from the day I started with the company

[in July 2003]. They were significantly below our retail price.”); CX0535 at 010 (2006 business 

plan stating that 1-800 Contacts’ “pricing strategy” was to “[p]rice below independent ECPs, 

close to retail chains, but above our online competitors and Costco”); see also Coon, Tr. 

2708:22-2709:9 (noting that “[l]iterally from the beginning”, 1-800 Contacts’ strategy was to 

price at a discount from ECPs but slightly higher than other online contact lens retailers; that 

strategy has “never changed”); IDF 434 (“1-800 Contacts on average has retail prices for contact 

lenses below independent ECPs and retail optical chains, but higher than mass merchants, club 

stores, and other online retailers.”) (citation omitted).

Second, Complaint Counsel has put forward no evidence that the price gap increased as a 

result of the Trademark Settlements. There is no clear causal connection between the price gap 

and the Trademark Settlements, especially considering that the gap existed before the Trademark 

Settlements. And there are at least two innocuous and equally plausible reasons why 1-800 

Contacts’ prices are higher, including its superior service43 and customers’ preference for the 

 

43 The majority assert that certain evidence counters a finding that the service differential explains the price gap. See 

Op. at 48. But superior service is just one of the reasons that 1-800 Contacts’ prices may be higher than its 

competitors’ prices. Regardless of how persuasive one may find the evidence on the service differential, it is 

insufficient to show that the price gap is the result of supracompetitive pricing. Also, the majority’s reliance on 

competitor testimony claiming that they “offer comparable service to 1-800 Contacts” is remarkable. See id. What 

competitor is going to get on the stand and testify under oath that its service is inferior? 
33

1-800 Contacts brand.44 Both of these were likely facilitated and enhanced by 1-800 Contacts’ 

ability to earn a return on its brand.

45

Without observable direct effects, the majority and Complaint Counsel rely on the claim 

that prices would have gone down but for the Trademark Settlements. But Complaint Counsel 

failed to quantify the amount that prices would have gone down in their but-for world. See, e.g., 

Evans, Tr. 1723:20-1724:3 (Complaint Counsel’s economic expert confirming that he did not 

quantify the extent to which 1-800 Contacts or any other company’s prices would have gone 

down in the absence of the Trademark Settlements); see also CX8007 (Athey Expert Report) at 

036 (providing no empirical evidence for her conclusions). The law requires more: specifically, 

actual, sustained, and substantial or significant effects. Without quantification, we cannot know 

whether the harm meets that test.

The majority also claim that 1-800 Contacts maintained supracompetitive prices. See Op. 

at 49. But Complaint Counsel did not adduce legally sufficient proof. “[T]o support a claim that 

a defendant set supracompetitive prices through direct evidence, a plaintiff must often provide an 

analysis of the defendant’s costs, showing both that the defendant had an ‘abnormally high pricecost margin’ and that the defendant ‘restricted output.’” Mylan Pharm. Inc. v. Warner Chilcott 

Pub. Ltd. Co., 838 F.3d 421, 434 (3d Cir. 2016) (quoting Geneva Pharm. Tech. Corp. v. Barr 

Labs. Inc., 386 F.3d 485, 500 (2d Cir. 2004)). As for the second prong of that test, Complaint 

Counsel does not contend that the Trademark Settlements reduced output. See ID at 153 n.36.

Returning to the first prong, the majority do not even attempt to show that 1-800 

Contacts’ price-cost margin was abnormally high—either before or after the Trademark 

 

44 See, e.g., McCarthy 5th Edition, supra, § 2:5 (noting that neither brand preference nor paying a premium for 

branded products is irrational); RX0739 (Murphy Expert Report) at 081 (“Economists studying price dispersion 

have shown that a variety of characteristics beyond access to information, such as consumer trust, retailer brand, 

market and category characteristics, can play an important role in explaining price dispersion.”) (footnote omitted); 

Borden, Inc., Proposed Order Modification with Statement to Aid Public Comment, 48 Fed. Reg. 9023, 9025 

(proposed Mar. 3, 1983) (to be codified at 16 C.F.R. pt.13) (noting consumers’ willingness to pay a price premium 

as the result of a company’s “familiar and successfully advertised trademark”, which “reflected a marketplace 

judgment about interbrand competition, which ‘is the primary concern of antitrust law.’”) (quoting Continental T.V., 

Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U.S. 36, 51-52 n.19 (1977)); Complaint at 7, In re J.M. Smucker Co. & Conagra 

Brands, Inc., Dkt. No. 9381 (F.T.C. Mar. 5, 2018) (“Differences in shelf prices for branded and private label CV 

[i.e., canola and vegetable] oils reflect end consumers’ perception of meaningful product differentiation between 

branded and private label CV oils. End consumers who buy branded CV oils generally pay a significantly higher 

price for a branded CV oil than for a private label CV oil.”).

45 As the Supreme Court has noted:

Many decisions a manufacturer makes and carries out through concerted action can lead to higher 

prices. A manufacturer might, for example, contract with different suppliers to obtain better inputs 

that improve product quality. Or it might hire an advertising agency to promote awareness of its 

goods. Yet no one would think these actions violate the Sherman Act because they lead to higher 

prices. The antitrust laws do not require manufacturers to produce generic goods that consumers 

do not know about or want. The manufacturer strives to improve its product quality or to promote 

its brand because it believes this conduct will lead to increased demand despite higher prices.

Leegin Creative Leather Prods., Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., 551 U.S. 877, 896-97 (2007).
34 

Settlements.

46 Instead, they rely on inferences and arguments unsupported by proven facts to 

show that 1-800 Contacts charged supracompetitive prices. As an initial matter, it is obvious that 

Complaint Counsel failed to meet their burden here because they did not proffer any evidence on 

margins.47 The only evidence in the record regarding 1-800 Contacts’ margins was proffered by 

1-800 Contacts, and that evidence showed that 1-800 Contacts’ margins 

from 2003 to 2016 despite the Trademark Settlements. RX0739 (Murphy Expert Report) at 064, 

107. The majority claim that “ margins do not necessarily mean prices did not rise; 

without competitive pressures, costs may have risen as prices increased, 

.” Op. at 49 (italicized emphasis added). This argument substitutes conjecture for 

actual evidence by providing one possible theory for . It is more likely that 

1-800 Contacts’ margins were not affected by the Trademark Settlements. See, e.g., 

RX0739 (Murphy Expert Report) at 064 (stating that 1-800 Contacts’ margins have been 

over time” and did not increase as a result of the Trademark Settlements, 

which “tells us that the settlements .”). 

Indeed, the founder of 1-800 Contacts testified that the company has had the same pricing and 

margin strategy since 1992. See CX9035 at 023 (Coon Dep. 86:15-87:14). Regardless of which 

explanation is more plausible, it is Complaint Counsel’s burden to prove direct effects, and they 

have provided no evidence on the topic of margins. 

In an effort to show that 1-800 Contacts’ profit margins could be explained by 

1-800 Contacts’ pre-Trademark Settlement supracompetitive prices, the majority attempt to put 

forward indirect evidence of market power. See Op. at 49. They claim that—because it was “the 

incumbent online seller” and had a large share of online sales—1-800 Contacts had market 

power, which allowed it to charge supracompetitive prices prior to the Trademark Settlements. 

See id. at 49. This argument fails as a matter of law. First, this is not an argument based on direct 

evidence of anticompetitive effects; rather, it is an attempt to shoehorn an indirect showing of 

market power into a direct effects analysis. See Geneva Pharm., 386 F.3d at 500 (“[The] 

plaintiffs’ assertion with regard to [the defendant]’s continuing high percentage market share is 

not direct evidence, but rather requires that we engage in the sort of inference more appropriate 

for market share analysis.”). Second, an indirect showing of market power based on market 

shares requires a properly defined market, which is absent here. See AREEDA & HOVENKAMP, 

supra, ¶ 531 (“Market definition is the initial step in assessing a market’s structure.”) (footnote 

omitted); see also id. ¶ 532(a) (“Identifying a market and computing market shares provide an 

indirect means for estimating market power.”). Without a properly defined market, showing that 

1-800 Contacts had market power based on its share of online sales is impossible. And without a 

showing of market power, the inference that 1-800 Contacts could have been charging 

supracompetitive prices also fails. As a result, it is equally (if not more) plausible that 1-800 

Contacts’ margin is consistent with a finding that the Trademark Settlements had 

 

46 The majority also fail to show that 1-800 Contacts’ margins would have been lower but for the Trademark 

Settlements; indeed, the record is devoid of evidence of counterfactual margins.

47 Given that Complaint Counsel bears the burden of proof to show direct effects, it is odd for the majority to argue 

that 1-800 Contacts somehow calculated its margins incorrectly without requiring any affirmative evidence from 

Complaint Counsel or any critique of 1-800 Contacts’ margin calculation itself. See Op. at 49. It appears that the 

majority shift the burden to disprove direct effects to 1-800 Contacts while relieving Complaint Counsel of its 

burden entirely.
35 

 on 1-800 Contacts’ margins, rather than supracompetitive prices as the majority claim. 

Cf. Op. at 49. 

The majority also claim that “[p]roof of an anticompetitive effect does not require an 

econometric model to estimate a precise competitive price in order to establish that the existing 

price is supracompetitive.” 48 Id. While we may not need a “precise competitive price”, we do 

need evidence of substantial (or significant) anticompetitive harm to find that Complaint Counsel 

met its burden to show actual, sustained, and significant or substantial direct effects, especially in 

the presence of real efficiencies that would weigh against any such harm. If the econometrics are 

insufficient to quantify harm, there is always the option of showing market power indirectly; but 

the majority opt not to perform that analysis here. See Section II(D), infra. 

Finally, the majority argue that the 1-800 Contacts price match policy provides evidence 

that the Trademark Settlements “had actual price effects”. Op. at 47. But the presence of a price 

match policy does not prove direct effects; it is equally consistent with a desire by 1-800 

Contacts to price discriminate among its customers. And the mere existence of the policy itself 

signals to customers that they can buy their contact lenses from other suppliers at potentially 

lower prices. 

C. The Majority Inappropriately Discount 1-800 Contacts’ Procompetitive 

Justifications for the Trademark Settlements. 

Given that Complaint Counsel did not meet their initial burden under the inherently 

suspect framework or by showing direct effects (and because the majority opt not to attempt an 

indirect showing of market power), 1-800 Contacts need not put forward procompetitive 

justifications. Nevertheless, the majority fail to give appropriate credit to 1-800 Contacts’ 

proffered procompetitive justifications.

In their preliminary analysis of 1-800 Contacts’ procompetitive justifications, the 

majority recognize that the avoidance of litigation costs through settlement is a “legitimate” 

justification that is “cognizable and, at least, facially plausible”. Op. at 23. The majority also 

concede that avoidance of litigation costs is a well-recognized procompetitive justification. See

id. (citing Actavis, 570 U.S. at 153; Schering-Plough I, 136 F.T.C. at 1003; In re Tamoxifen 

Citrate Antitrust Litig., 466 F.3d 187, 202 (2d Cir. 2006)). Both sides’ experts recognize that 

settling lawsuits is generally economically efficient. IDF 355 (citing RX0739 (Murphy Expert 

Rep.) at 053, CX9042 at 050 (Evans Dep. 196:22-24)). “There is no question that settlements 

provide a number of private and social benefits as opposed to the inveterate and costly effects of 

litigation.” Schering-Plough II, 402 F.3d at 1075 (citation omitted). 

Despite this clear precedent and their acknowledgement that avoiding litigation costs is 

procompetitive, the majority claim that, to be considered “valid”, a respondent must show that 

 

48 This claim contrasts markedly with the majority’s defense of the model put forward by Complaint Counsel’s 

expert to support the alleged advertising restrictions: “The opinions of Complaint Counsel’s experts derive from the 

facts in the record and econometric analysis of those facts. The experts use known facts to quantify the impact of 

the advertising restrictions on the ads that would otherwise appear and on the consumer responses—including clicks 

and purchases—thereto. They provide empirical evidence, not economic theory isolated from facts, and the 

underlying facts are in the record.” Op. at 48. 
36

any cost reduction achieved through settlement was passed on to customers. See Op. at 36-37.

The majority cite no relevant case law for this proposition.49 Economic theory cannot fill the 

precedential void for the majority’s rule. Capital savings like reductions in litigation costs from 

settlements do not directly affect marginal costs, so it would be impossible to show that they 

were passed on directly to customers in the form of price reductions.

50 Thus, under the 

majority’s analysis, savings resulting from settlements are “legitimate”, “cognizable”, and 

“facially plausible”, but could never be “valid”. See Op. at 23, 36-37. That cannot be the rule.

The FTC and Supreme Court in Actavis recognized that the litigation costs saved through 

a settlement could be an “offsetting or redeeming virtue[ ]”. Actavis, 570 U.S. at 156. The Court 

explained that “[w]here a reverse payment reflects traditional settlement considerations, such as 

avoided litigation costs or fair value for services, there is not the same concern that a patentee is 

using its monopoly profits to avoid the risk of patent invalidation or a finding of 

noninfringement.” Id. In other words, the Supreme Court considered avoided litigation costs as a 

procompetitive justification. Id. Nowhere did the Court require a showing that savings be passed 

on to customers in order to be “valid”.

Regardless, the Trademark Settlements had the added benefit of protecting the settling 

parties’ intellectual property rights. As discussed above (see Section II(A)(4), supra), trademarks 

promote interbrand competition, which the Supreme Court has identified as “the primary concern 

of antitrust law”. Bus. Elecs. Corp. v. Sharp Elecs. Corp., 485 U.S. 717, 724 (1988) (quoting 

Continental T.V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U.S. 36, 51-52 n.19 (1977)). The ability to 

enforce and settle claims for infringement of those rights is essential to achieving their purpose. 

Thus, a reduction in—or elimination of—litigation costs as the result of a settlement is not just 

legitimate, it is also a valid procompetitive justification even without a showing that the specific 

reduction in litigation costs was passed on to consumers.

The majority’s only rebuttal to 1-800 Contacts’ argument that the trademark protections 

provided in the Trademark Settlements are procompetitive justifications is that 1-800 Contacts’ 

trademark infringement claims were weak. See Op. at 37-41. Evaluating the merits of the 

underlying infringement claims is inappropriate for the reasons explained above. See Section 

II(A)(4)(a), supra. The majority’s concern about the merits of 1-800 Contacts’ infringement 

 

49 None of the cases cited by the majority for the proposition that settlement-related saved litigation costs must be 

passed through to consumers in order to be “valid” involved a settlement of any kind. See Op. at 37 (citing Chicago 

Prof’l Sports LP v. Nat’l Basketball Ass’n, 961 F.2d 667, 674 (7th Cir. 1992) (challenge to the NBA’s rule that 

certain television channels could not carry more than 20 games per season), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 954 (1992); 

Polygram I, 136 F.T.C. at 345 (challenge to joint venture agreement between competitors not to discount or 

advertise); FTC v. Penn State Hershey Med. Ctr., 838 F.3d 327, 350 (3d Cir. 2016) (challenge to a proposed merger 

between competing hospitals); Law v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 134 F.3d 1010, 1023 (10th Cir. 1998) 

(challenge to an NCAA rule limiting coaches’ compensation), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 822 (1998)). As a result, I do 

not find any of those cases as persuasive or as directly applicable to the present case as Actavis.

50 See, e.g., Dennis W. Carlton, Does Antitrust Need to be Modernized?, 21 J. ECON. PERSP. 155, 157 (2007)

(“Under a consumer surplus standard, only the saving in marginal costs will carry weight because it will reduce 

prices, while the fixed-cost savings is not considered as a benefit to consumers. . . . Gains that lead to lower fixed 

costs today can encourage research and development, new products, and plants in the future. However, by focusing 

only on efficiencies that influence price over a short period, a government antitrust agency risks failing to credit the 

future efficiencies that will benefit consumers in the long run. To put it another way, the fixed-cost savings of today 

are the variable-cost savings in the future for new products.”).
37

claims causes them to miss the forest for the trees. Nowhere in their evaluation of the trademarkrelated procompetitive benefits of the Trademark Settlements do the majority recognize how 

trademark protections and the vigorous enforcement of trademarks encourage brand investment 

and promote competition. In fact, the majority dismiss the benefits of trademark policy entirely. 

This is inappropriate as a matter of law and ignores the facts of this case, including the 

tremendous amount of investment 1-800 Contacts has made in building its brand, lowering the 

price of contact lenses, and offering customers superior service. It also raises the question of 

what the majority’s rule would mean for infringement claims they view as strong.

D. The Majority Forego an Indirect Showing of Market Power.

Because I do not believe that the majority have shown that the challenged conduct is 

inherently suspect or that Complaint Counsel have met their burden to show substantial direct 

anticompetitive effects, the only way for Complaint Counsel to meet its initial burden is through 

an indirect showing of market power.51 But the majority opt not to take that route here, instead 

relying exclusively on their claim that the Trademark Settlements are inherently suspect or 

caused direct anticompetitive effects. Even though the majority do not establish a relevant 

market, assumptions about the market permeate their opinion, providing ballast to a number of 

their premises. Without a properly defined product market, each of these arguments fails.

For example, in their section on direct effects, the only support that the majority put 

forward for their claim that 1-800 Contacts charged supracompetitive prices prior to the 

Trademark Settlements was that “1-800 Contacts was the incumbent online seller, with a 

dominant share of online sales throughout this period.” Op. at 49 (citations omitted). For the 

reasons discussed above, see Section II(B)(2), supra, any attempt to show that 1-800 Contacts 

charged supracompetitive prices as the direct result of its “share of online sales” requires a 

properly defined relevant market in which market power can be inferred from a high share. See

AREEDA & HOVENKAMP, supra, ¶¶ 531-532. In other words, market definition is a prerequisite to 

inferring that 1-800 Contacts charged supracompetitive prices from its share of the market.

Without a relevant market, any claim that 1-800 Contacts had market power based on its “share 

of online sales” and, therefore, charged supracompetitive prices is unsupportable.

The majority also “find that the agreements harm consumers and competition for the 

online sale of contact lenses.” Op. at 2 (emphasis added). It is impossible for the Trademark 

Settlements to harm competition in a limited line of commerce like “online sales” without a 

showing that such a limitation is appropriate. In other words, by failing to prove that “the online 

sale of contact lenses” is a properly defined antitrust market, the majority cannot claim that 

customers or competition in that market were harmed. Elsewhere, the majority use similar claims 

that 1-800 Contacts had a large share of “online sales” to imply that 1-800 Contacts was 

somehow a dominant seller of contact lenses online. See, e.g., id. at 4 (“In 2015, 1-800 Contacts 

accounted for approximately 54 percent of online sales, which is more than four times the sales 

 

51 See, e.g., Realcomp I, 2007 WL 6936319, at *31 (stating that—absent a finding that a restraint is inherently 

suspect—a plaintiff can meet its initial burden “in either of two ways . . . an indirect showing based on a 

demonstration of defendant’s market power . . . [or] direct evidence of ‘actual, sustained adverse effects on 

competition’”) (quoting IFD, 476 U.S. at 461; and citing Tops Markets, Inc. v. Quality Markets, Inc., 142 F.3d 90, 

96 (2d Cir. 1998); Law, 134 F.3d at 1019; United States v. Brown Univ., 5 F.3d 658, 668 (3d Cir. 1993)).
38

of the second-largest online retailer.”) (citations omitted). However, because the majority opt not 

to define a relevant market, their attempts to show 1-800 Contacts was a dominant online 

seller—or even that they had a large share of contact lens sales—necessarily fail, as do any 

implications the majority would like to draw from those attempts.

The majority similarly assert that the Trademark Settlements are problematic because 

they cover a large number of online contact lens retailers that make up a large percentage of 

online contact lens sales. See id. at 33 (“Challenged Agreements covered 14 different online 

contact-lens retailers that account for 79 percent of online contact lenses in the United States. . . . 

[T]he challenged agreements here cover the landscape of online contact-lens retailers resulting in 

harm to competition overall.”) (citations omitted). Because it relies on an indirect showing of 

market power, the majority’s conclusion that the Trademark Settlements caused “harm to

competition” requires proof of a relevant antitrust market comprised of the online sale of contact 

lenses in the United States. Absent a proper showing such a market exists, statements like these 

are irrelevant to the antitrust analysis and do not support the majority’s assertion that the

Trademark Settlements harmed competition.

Not only do these assumptions about the market support key aspects of the majority’s 

analysis, while lacking support themselves, they elide difficult questions about the market in this 

case. Significant participants in the online sales of contact lenses were not party to the 

Trademark Settlements, and the record reflects that customers purchased the majority (83%) of 

their contact lenses from other kinds of retailers, including independent ECPs, optical retail 

chains, mass merchants, and club stores. See IDF 491. Some were more expensive; some 

cheaper. Competition from these other retailers cannot be ignored, especially without a properly 

defined relevant market.

E. The Majority Have Not Shown That the Trademark Settlements Have 

Anticompetitive Effects for Search Engines.

The majority also would condemn the Trademark Settlements as unlawful because of 

their effects on firms owning search engines, such as Google (the search engine owned by 

Alphabet, Inc.) and Bing (owned by Microsoft Corp.).

52 This legal theory is novel; none of the 

cases cited by the majority as involving advertising restrictions (e.g., California Dental and 

Polygram) considered such harm. If the theory is novel, the evidence that search engines have 

 

52 It is odd for the Commission to address this issue at all. Judge Chappell did not analyze the effect of the 

Trademark Settlements on search engines and Complaint Counsel did not appeal this portion of the Initial Decision. 

See Op. at 50 & n.52.
39 

been harmed is all but absent.

53 Microsoft

 and its testified that the company is “

.” RX0704 at 007. 

As to Google—the largest seller of paid search advertising (see Stip. at 5)—I am 

concerned this theory of liability fails adequately to take into account record evidence about the 

putative victim’s role in the alleged harm. As noted above, until 2004 Google itself banned as a 

matter of company policy the same conduct later barred by the Trademark Settlements (i.e., 

permitting advertisements for third parties to appear in response to searches for trademarked 

keywords). See Section I(C), supra. When it changed its policy, Google assisted trademark 

owners, including 1-800 Contacts, to address the threat to their marks, advising them specifically 

that negative keywords were an effective tool to prevent or limit the opportunities for trademark 

infringement. See id. There is some irony, then, in claiming that Google was harmed. At the very 

least, the fact that Google once required and, later, affirmatively encouraged the allegedly 

anticompetitive conduct suggests the Trademark Settlements do not harm Google, a sophisticated 

and aggressively competitive seller of search-based online advertising, in any material way.

 

53 I disagree with the conclusion the majority reach on the facts here, as explained in the text, but note that 

condemning actual bid rigging is a critical component of any robust antitrust regime. The Commission has a dual 

mission to protect consumers and to promote competition. What We Do, FED. TRADE COMM’N, 

https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/what-we-do. Promoting competition requires effective enforcement of the antitrust 

laws regardless of the identity of the harmed customer. See, e.g., FTC v. Staples, Inc., 190 F. Supp. 3d 100, 117-22

(D.D.C. 2016) (enjoining merger between the two largest office supply companies in the country because of the 

potential harm to large businesses, including some of “the most powerful companies in the world”) (citation 

omitted); id. at 126 (“Antitrust laws exist to protect competition, not a particular set of consumers”); FTC v. Sysco 

Corp., 113 F. Supp. 3d 1 (D.D.C. 2015) (enjoining merger between the two largest broadline foodservice 

distribution companies in the country primarily based on potential harm to businesses with a nationwide or multiregional footprint); see also FTC v. Penn State Hershey Med. Ctr., 838 F.3d 327, 338 (3d Cir. 2016) (reversing the 

district court’s denial of a preliminary injunction because the merger was likely to harm competition in the market 

for “general acute care (‘GAC’) services sold to commercial payors [i.e., insurers]”); FTC v. Advocate Health Care 

Network, 841 F.3d 460 (7th Cir. 2016) (same). And “there is near universal agreement that restrictive agreements 

among competitors, such as horizontal price-fixing (including bid-rigging) . . . can cause serious economic harm.” 

Office of General Counsel, U.S. Sentencing Commission, Primer: Antitrust, at 1 (March 2018), 

https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/training/primers/2017_Primer_Antitrust.pdf (footnote omitted). 
40

In their analysis, the majority apply the rule of reason to consider the harm to search 

engines,54 finding direct evidence of decreases in (1) search engine advertising revenue; and 

(2) the number of advertisements displayed, which the majority claim reduced both the total 

output of advertisements and the quality of the search engines’ product, the search engine results 

page (“SERP”). See Op. at 50-54. Neither finding is sufficient to show direct effects under the 

Supreme Court’s standard, recently reiterated in AmEx, that “[d]irect evidence of anticompetitive 

effects would be ‘proof of actual detrimental effects [on competition],’ such as reduced output, 

increased prices, or decreased quality in the relevant market”. AmEx, 138 S. Ct. at 2284 (quoting 

IFD, 476 U.S. at 460) (other citations omitted); see also United States v. Microsoft Corp., 253 

F.3d 34, 51 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (“[A] firm is a monopolist if it can profitably raise prices 

substantially above the competitive level. Where evidence indicates that a firm has in fact 

profitably done so, the existence of monopoly power is clear. Because such direct proof is only 

rarely available, courts more typically examine market structure in search of circumstantial 

evidence of monopoly power.”) (citations omitted).

The evidence does not support a finding of a direct price effect (here, a reduction in paid 

search advertising auction prices). The majority do not cite evidence of reductions in advertising 

budgets or the number of advertisements created or displayed by the contracting parties. Instead, 

the majority proffer a theory that “a reduction in the number of search-advertising auction 

participants offering relevant ads reduces the price paid by the auction winners and reduces the 

revenue for the search engine.” Op. at 51 (footnote omitted). While this might be correct with

 

54 In a footnote, the majority argue that the Trademark Settlements could also be evaluated in terms of their impact 

upon search engines under an “inherently suspect” framework. See Op. at 50-51 n.54. But the facts of this case do 

not meet the standard for applying that standard. The Trademark Settlements govern what kind of advertisements 

can be bought, not the amount of advertisements that a company can buy; and a rudimentary observer might very 

well conclude such conduct has no effect on search engines. What is more, the majority do not cite sufficient

economic evidence or judicial experience that would justify the application of a truncated rule of reason analysis.

See id. While bid rigging has indeed been condemned as violating the antitrust laws, the Trademark Settlements are 

categorically different from the types of conduct that the FTC and DOJ consider per se illegal bid rigging. See Price 

Fixing, Bid Rigging, and Market Allocation Schemes: What They Are and What to Look For, An Antitrust Primer, 

U.S. DEP’T OF JUSTICE, https://www.justice.gov/atr/price-fixing-bid-rigging-and-market-allocation-schemes

[hereinafter “DOJ Antitrust Primer”]; Bid Rigging, FED. TRADE COMM’N, https://www.ftc.gov/tipsadvice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/dealings-competitors/bid-rigging. They lack what almost all forms 

of bid rigging have in common: “an agreement among some or all of the bidders which predetermines the winning 

bidder”. DOJ Antitrust Primer, supra, at 3. Nothing in the Trademark Settlements predetermined the winner of any 

auction. The Trademark Settlements also are not akin to per se illegal bid rigging because they were not intended to 

(and did not always) decrease auction prices, which happened (if at all) only incidentally as the result of the search 

engines’ use of an auction algorithm. Cf. Compact v. Metro. Gov’t of Nashville & Davidson Cty., Tenn., 594 F.

Supp. 1567, 1575-76 (M.D. Tenn. 1984) (agreement to “fix the price of minority architect participation on public 

contracts” with the intent and “admitted purpose[ ]” of “eliminat[ing] competitive bidding between its members”).

As a result, the Trademark Settlements do not bear the “close family resemblance” to classic bid rigging or rotation 

sufficient to apply “inherently suspect” analysis. See Polygram II, 416 F.3d at 36-37; see also United States v. 

Heffernan, 43 F.3d 1144, 1146-47 (7th Cir. 1994) (interpreting “bid rigging” as meaning “bid rotation”, the latter of 

which “eliminate[s] all competition rather than just price competition”) (citation omitted).

The majority also suggest that Complaint Counsel’s initial burden under the inherently suspect and direct effects 

standards “rely on the same evidence”. Op. at 50-51 n.54. Suggesting that both standards utilize precisely the same 

evidence and failing to explain how the two analytical frameworks differ, I fear, will only exacerbate confusion in 

the law. As an expert antitrust agency, the Commission has a duty to help clarify the law, and its decisions certainly 

endeavor not to obfuscate antitrust analysis further.
41 

respect to certain auctions and SERPs involving trademarked keywords, there is no evidence that 

this is true with respect to the purchases by the parties to the Trademark Settlements generally, 

including purchases of other paid search advertising, online advertising more broadly, or 

advertising as a whole.55 But even accepting the specific auction as the relevant denominator, the 

record shows that it is not always true that if fewer advertisers participate in an auction that the 

price paid by the auction winner goes down. See, e.g., IDF 219 (“Under the second price auction 

used by Google, the number of bidders may or may not affect the actual [cost-per-click].”); Juda, 

Tr. 1205:5-10 (Google executive testifying that “[i]t is not always the case that more advertisers 

results in higher [cost-per-click]”); CX9019 at 015, 036 (Juda Dep. 55:9-13, 137:18-138:22) 

(Google executive testifying that, in certain circumstances, an “increase in [the number of] 

bidders would have zero influence on the price that that highest person was paying”, and that an 

additional bidder may or may not affect the cost-per-click of another advertiser in the auction). 

As whom the majority cite for the 

proposition that reducing the number of search engine auction participants could reduce the 

prices paid by the auction winners (and thereby reduce search engine revenue), see Op. at 51-52, 

explained,

” RX0704 at 006. 

The majority also claim price effects on the theory that—because advertisements limited 

by the Trademark Settlements had a higher return on investment (“ROI”)—advertisers would 

spend less in the absence of their availability. Op. at 53-54. That is a plausible assumption. But, 

especially given how important online advertising apparently was to the contracting parties, see

id. at 6-7, 30-31, it is equally plausible they would have bought other advertisements, with no 

harm going to the owners of the search engines.

The majority’s ROI theory also discounts the value of advertising purchased for brandbuilding (as opposed to only for sales) purposes. If advertisers viewed online search advertising 

as a branding opportunity, removing certain keywords from the available pool would most likely 

shift advertising purchases to other keywords, because brand building is more about appearing 

frequently than achieving a set ROI with each appearance. The record is replete with evidence 

that advertisers evaluated online search advertisements on a brand-building basis (in addition to 

 

55 The majority do not articulate what the appropriate scope of an “advertising” market would be. The majority’s 

analysis at best demonstrates a “direct effect” in the number of advertisements displayed in response to searches for 

the trademarked terms covered by the Trademark Settlements. Such a market seems implausible. Courts have 

rejected “search engine advertising” as a viable antitrust market because it is too narrow, but even that is far broader 

than the handful of trademarked keywords within search engine advertising at issue here. See, e.g., Lasoff v. 

Amazon.com Inc., No. C16-151, 2017 WL 372948, at *9 (W.D. Wash. Jan. 26, 2017) (“Because there is no basis for 

distinguishing the ‘search engine advertising’ market from the larger market of all internet advertising, the former is 

simply too narrow to form a meaningful ‘relevant market’ for purposes of antitrust liability.”) (quoting Person v. 

Google, Inc., No. C06-7297, 2007 WL 832941, at *4 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 16, 2007) (“The Court finds no basis for 

distinguishing the Search Ad Market from the larger market for Internet advertising. Search-based advertising is 

reasonably interchangeable with other forms of Internet advertising.”)); see also Statement of Commissioner 

Ohlhausen, Commissioner Wright, and Commissioner McSweeny Concerning Zillow, Inc. / Trulia, Inc., FTC File 

No. 141-0214 (Feb. 19, 2015), 

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements/625671/150219zillowmko-jdw-tmstmt.pdf. 
42 

ROI). One witness explained that his company built its brand “primarily through the online 

search advertising.” CX9024 at 011 (Holbrook Dep. at 40:4-7); see also at 048 

at ) 

); IDF 602 (“LensDirect believes there is value in showing an ad in 

response to a search for 1-800 Contacts, even if the ad is not clicked on, because it gives 

LensDirect brand visibility next to the larger players without any cost.”) (citation omitted); ID at 

144 (“As LensDirect’s chief executive officer stated: ‘[T]he more times people see LensDirect, 

the better chance there is of them becoming a customer one day.’”) (citation omitted). While 

removing certain keywords from the available pool would most likely shift advertisement 

purchases to other keywords, the necessity of brand building gives additional reason to assume 

the money would continue to go to online search advertising, even with a lower ROI. 

Even if there were a reduction in advertising in response to searches for trademarked 

terms (which has not been proven), it is unclear that a reduction in the number of advertisements 

would negatively affect the quality of the search engine experience. As Complaint Counsel’s 

expert testified, there is significant literature explaining that search engines, as multi-sided 

platforms, must balance the advertisers’ desire to appear more frequently in SERPs and 

consumers’ desire to be bombarded with fewer ads. CX8006 (Evans Expert Report) at 024-025. 

Purchased advertisements are how the search engines monetize their platforms; whereas organic 

results are where the search engines place the links they deem most relevant to consumers. 

Consistent with this notion, testified that:

RX0704 at 003. Thus, from the search engines’ perspective, it is not clear how the quality of the 

advertisements are lessened.56

 

56 The majority assert that the Trademark Settlements prevented some consumers from clicking on advertisements 

that did not appear because of the agreements, presumably generating less value for the search engine. But it is not 

clear from the search engines’ perspective (i.e., the theory of harm at issue here) why a consumer searching for 

“1-800 Contacts” is less likely to click through under the Trademark Settlements. They might be faced with a more 

obviously responsive advertisement (e.g., one for 1-800 Contacts), and thus more likely to click through on that 

advertisement than on an advertisement for another vendor. Indeed, record evidence indicates that most searches for 

the trademarked terms at issue were, in fact, navigational—that is, consumers typed in “1-800 contacts” because 

they wanted to reach 1-800 Contacts’ website. RX0733 (Ghose Expert Report) at 007 (“[C]onsumers who searched 

for 1-800 Contacts’ trademarks typically did so with a navigational intent.”); id. at 060 (“[T]he academic literature 

and the data [ ] indicate that the vast majority of consumers searching for 1-800 Contacts’ trademark do so with 

navigational intent.”).
43

F. The Trademark Settlements Were Appropriately Tailored.

The majority rest their liability theory, in part, on the claim that the Trademark 

Settlements could have been narrower. See Op. at 25-30. This substitutes the Commission’s 

judgment for that of the parties, contrary to what Clorox requires. See Clorox, 117 F.3d at 60. 

But the Trademark Settlements also were appropriately tailored to achieve their objective. The 

searches that the Trademark Settlements prohibit are precisely those searches that implicate 

1-800 Contacts’ trademarks. They are also the searches through which users are most likely 

attempting to reach the 1-800 Contacts website (i.e., searches for 1-800 Contacts’ trademark).

See, e.g., RX0733 (Ghose Expert Report) at 060 (“[T]he academic literature and the data [ ] 

indicate that the vast majority of consumers searching for 1-800 Contacts’ trademark do so with 

navigational intent.”). Indeed, 1-800 Contacts considered navigational searches (i.e., paid 

searches for its trademarks) as “direct traffic” to its website (as opposed to indirect traffic). IDF 

577. As a result, the settling parties structured the Trademark Settlements to prevent 

advertisements from appearing in response to searches for both parties’ trademarks.

The settling parties included a negative keyword provision in response to Google’s 

explicit encouragement for 1-800 Contacts to resolve its trademark disputes with competitors by 

having them implement 1-800 Contacts’ trademarked terms as negative keywords. See, e.g., 

Schmidt, Tr. 2904:2-16, 2905:16-25; CX9031 at 010-011 (C. Schmidt Dep. 33:20-35:2, 35:23-

36:2, 36:13-37:3); CX9013 at 044 (Aston Dep. 172:1-3) (“They [Google] instructed us [1-800 

Contacts] to have the offenders add those specific trademarked terms into their negatives for 

their -- for their AdWords campaigns.”); id. at 044-045 (170:8-20, 171:10-19, 173:5-20). They 

did so because, without negative keywords, a settling party’s advertisements could appear in 

response to searches for the counterparty’s trademarked terms.

Almost all of the Trademark Settlements balanced these restrictions with a provision 

explicitly permitting a settling party to use the counterparty’s trademarks in a manner that would 

not constitute infringement in the non-internet context, including comparative advertising. IDF 

369 (“Ten of the thirteen Settlement Agreements provide that the prohibited acts ‘shall not 

include (i) use of the other Party’s trademarks on the Internet in a manner that would not 

constitute an infringing use in an non-Internet context, e.g., the use on the Internet of 

comparative advertising, parodies, and similar non-Infringing, uses.’”) (citations omitted); see 

also IDF 305 (finding that 1-800 Contacts accepted changes to a draft settlement agreement with 

Vision Direct and stated that both parties should be able to engage in comparative advertising); 

IDF 309 (confirming that the 2004 Trademark Settlement between 1-800 Contacts and Vision 

Direct permitted non-infringing uses, such as comparative advertising, parodies, etc.).

As a result, in my view, the Trademark Settlements were appropriately tailored to achieve 

their goal of preventing trademark infringement while balancing the need to permit noninfringing advertising.

III. The Majority Fail to Analyze the Luxottica Sourcing and Services Agreement.

The majority do not analyze the sourcing and services agreement between Luxottica and 

1-800 Contacts (the “Luxottica Agreement”) correctly. Sourcing and services agreements, like 

trademark settlement agreements, are typically considered procompetitive. See Fed. Trade 
44 

Comm’n & U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Antitrust Guidelines for Collaborations Among Competitors, at 

1 (Apr. 2000) [hereinafter “Competitor Collaboration Guidelines”]. As a result, courts typically 

analyze ancillary restraints accompanying sourcing and services agreements under the rule of 

reason. See AREEDA & HOVENKAMP, supra, ¶ 1908(c). The majority, however, treat the sourcing 

and services agreement between Luxottica and 1-800 Contacts as “inherently suspect” by 

lumping it in with the Trademark Settlements. See Op. at 10. The only time the majority discuss 

the Luxottica Agreement is to note that certain procompetitive justifications that 1-800 Contacts 

proffered for the Trademark Settlements do not apply to the Luxottica Agreement. See, e.g., id. 

at 12 n.14, 37. By ignoring its plain language and considering the Luxottica Agreement to be just 

another Trademark Settlement, the majority lay bare the broad scope of the rule they announce 

and fail to address additional procompetitive justifications that typically accompany supply and 

sourcing agreements.57

A. The Luxottica Sourcing and Services Agreement Is a Supply Agreement, Not a 

Trademark Settlement. 

In December 2013, 1-800 Contacts entered a sourcing and services agreement with 

Luxottica. IDF 393. Luxottica operates chains of brick-and-mortar retail stores—such as 

LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Sears Optical, and Target Optical—that sell, among other things, 

contact lenses. IDF 394. The Luxottica Agreement did not end any alleged trademark 

infringement; instead, it provides for a mutually beneficial vertical relationship between 1-800 

Contacts and Luxottica. See CX0331. In particular, under the Luxottica Agreement, 1-800 

Contacts provides (1) fulfillment services by shipping contact lenses to Luxottica’s retail chain 

stores and (2) other services, including assistance with sourcing contact lenses from the four 

major contact lens manufacturers. IDF 394. 

Judge Chappell made explicit the benefit of the Luxottica Agreement to 1-800 Contacts: 

“As a result of the agreement between 1-800 Contacts and Luxottica, 1-800 Contacts is 

.” IDF 395 (citations omitted). But there 

were also benefits to Luxottica. In particular, 1-800 Contacts managed and operated Luxottica’s 

contact lens business. See CX0331 at 006. In effect, Luxottica outsourced its entire contact lens 

business, including negotiating with contact lens suppliers, to 1-800 Contacts.58 See id. at 025 

(“LUX shall use 1-800 exclusively to source Trial Lenses and Revenue Product in the 

Territory.”) (emphasis added); id. at 014 (defining “Revenue Products” as “contact lenses for 

retail sale”); id. at 018 (defining “Territory” as “the United States of America, its territories, and 

Canada”); id. at 026 (“1-800 shall lead all negotiations with Suppliers”). 

 

57 The majority defend their approach by stating that Respondent did not carry its burden of establishing the 

procompetitive nature of the Luxottica Agreement. See Op. at 37 n.38. That does not justify ignoring the plain terms 

of the Luxottica Agreement, which clearly is not a settlement of any kind, much less one of the Trademark 

Settlements analyzed here.

58 Under the Luxottica Agreement, 1-800 Contacts maintained the inventory of contact lenses and shipped them 

directly to Luxottica’s retail chain stores and directly to the homes of customers of Luxottica’s retail stores. CX0331 

at 029; Bethers, Tr. 3524:5-3525:6, 3694:14-3695:14. The packaging of all contact lenses shipped by 1-800 Contacts 

under the agreement bore Luxottica’s labels and in no way indicated that 1-800 Contacts was involved. CX0331 at 

029; Bethers, Tr. 3525:7-21, 3694:14-3695:14.
45

B. The Majority Ignore Procompetitive Justifications for the Luxottica Agreement.

The majority assert that certain justifications for the Trademark Settlements do not apply 

to the Luxottica Agreement, see Op. at 12 n.14, 37, but they simultaneously ignore

procompetitive justifications for sourcing and services agreements. The Commission enumerated 

some of those justifications in guidelines jointly published with the U.S. Department of Justice. 

See Competitor Collaboration Guidelines. The Luxottica Agreement falls squarely within the 

agencies’ definition of “competitor collaborations.” Id. § 1.1 (“Competitor collaborations involve 

one or more business activities, such as research and development (‘R&D’), production, 

marketing, distribution, sales or purchasing.”) (emphasis added). The Guidelines recognize the 

Commission’s view that agreements among competitors (or potential competitors)59 can benefit 

customers in a variety of ways. See id. § 2.1. Among the many consumer benefits that could 

result from the Luxottica Agreement is the fact that 1-800 Contacts has the largest inventory of 

contact lenses in the industry, see IDF 44, and therefore may have a comparative advantage over 

Luxottica in negotiating with suppliers and delivering contact lenses to customers. As a direct 

result of its decision to outsource much of its contact lens business to 1-800 Contacts, Luxottica 

customers could receive lower prices and better service (e.g., faster delivery).

The majority opinion fails to analyze any of the foregoing (or any other potential) 

procompetitive justifications for the Luxottica Agreement.60 Instead, they summarily condemn it 

as part-and-parcel of the Trademark Settlements. Given the seemingly apparent procompetitive 

justifications, I fear this omission speaks more to the breadth of the conduct the majority 

condemn.

IV. The Majority’s Remedy

The remedy proposed by the majority is ineffective. The Order states that the only 

agreements that 1-800 Contacts can enter are those that, in effect, tell the counterparty that they 

cannot violate the trademark laws. See Final Order at 2-3. Such agreements resolve nothing and 

will only lead to more litigation to determine what conduct actually violates the trademark laws 

in the context of paid search advertising based on trademarked keywords. Because the Order 

only allows agreements that do not actually resolve the dispute in trademark infringement 

litigation, it will reduce the incentive to settle, which, in turn, will lead to either less trademark 

 

59 I note that it is unclear from the majority opinion whether they view Luxottica (a brick-and-mortar retailer) and 

1-800 Contacts (an online contact lens retailer) as direct horizontal competitors because the majority fail to define a 

relevant product market. Nevertheless, the same analysis is appropriate regardless of whether the two companies 

directly compete. See Competitor Collaboration Guidelines, § 1.1.

60 The majority also fail to analyze the advertising restrictions in the context of the Luxottica Agreement. For 

example, the restrictions on paid keyword search advertising may have been necessary for the parties to enter into 

the Luxottica Agreement in the first place. Given the potential procompetitive benefits surrounding competitor 

collaborations like the Luxottica Agreement, it is likely that any anticompetitive harm caused by the advertising 

restrictions would be outweighed by the procompetitive benefits of the agreement as a whole.
46

enforcement or more costly litigation for the same reasons discussed above. See Section II(A)(4), 

supra.

61

* * *

The Commission’s mandate is to enforce the antitrust laws, but we cannot do so in a 

vacuum. We need to consider competing policies, including federal trademark policy, when 

analyzing allegedly anticompetitive conduct. And we should recognize that unclear rules may do 

more to harm both to that policy and to competition than the alleged conduct here. In the case of 

the Trademark Settlements, precedent offers a better way: the Commission should analyze such 

agreements under the full rule of reason, giving appropriate weight to the trademarks at issue and 

the value they protect. Such a rule will decrease uncertainty in the market, encourage brand 

investment, and increase competition.

 

61 In the section discussing the remedy, the majority repeat at least two of their earlier claims that I believe are not 

supported by the facts, law, or both. First, they claim that they “are not establishing a new trademark rule” and even 

go so far as to say that they “make no ruling on any trademark issue at all.” Op. at 56. For the reasons discussed 

more fully above, there is a trademark ruling implicit in the majority’s decision to truncate their rule of reason

analysis. See Section II(A), supra. Second, they assert that the Order is not novel, in part, because “[a]ntitrust has 

long barred rivals’ agreements regarding advertising and bidding restrictions.” Op. at 56. This does not reflect a fair 

reading of the case law as applied to the Trademark Settlements, as I discuss above. See Section II, supra.