Antitrust Guidelines

for the Licensing of 

Intellectual Property

Issued by the 

U.S. Department of Justice 

and the 

Federal Trade Commission

January 12, 2017
i

Table of Contents

1 Intellectual Property Protection and the Antitrust Laws...........................................................................1

2 General Principles......................................................................................................................................2

2.1 Standard Antitrust Analysis Applies to Intellectual Property .............................................................3

2.2 Intellectual Property and Market Power............................................................................................4

2.3 Procompetitive Benefits of Licensing..................................................................................................5

3 Antitrust Concerns and Modes of Analysis................................................................................................7

3.1 Nature of the Concerns.......................................................................................................................7

3.2 Markets Affected by Licensing Arrangements....................................................................................8

3.2.1 Goods Markets.............................................................................................................................8

3.2.2 Technology Markets.....................................................................................................................9

3.2.3 Research and Development Markets.........................................................................................11

3.3 Horizontal and Vertical Relationships...............................................................................................14

3.4 Framework for Evaluating Licensing Restraints................................................................................16

4 General Principles Concerning the Agencies’ Evaluation of Licensing Arrangements under the Rule of 

Reason.........................................................................................................................................................19

4.1 Analysis of Anticompetitive Effects ..................................................................................................19

4.1.1 Market Structure, Coordination, and Foreclosure.....................................................................19

4.1.2 Licensing Arrangements Involving Exclusivity............................................................................20

4.2 Efficiencies and Justifications............................................................................................................23

4.3 Antitrust “Safety Zone”.....................................................................................................................24

5 Application of General Principles.............................................................................................................26

5.1 Horizontal Restraints.........................................................................................................................26

5.2 Price Maintenance ............................................................................................................................27

5.3 Tying Arrangements..........................................................................................................................28

5.4 Exclusive Dealing...............................................................................................................................29

5.5 Cross-Licensing and Pooling Arrangements......................................................................................30

5.6 Grantbacks........................................................................................................................................33

5.7 Acquisition of Intellectual Property Rights.......................................................................................34

6 Invalid or Unenforceable Intellectual Property Rights ............................................................................35
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1 Intellectual Property Protection and the Antitrust Laws

1.0 These Guidelines state the antitrust enforcement policy of the U.S. Department of Justice 

and the Federal Trade Commission (individually, “the Agency,” and collectively, “the Agencies”) 

with respect to the licensing of intellectual property protected by patent, copyright, and trade 

secret law, and of know-how.1 By stating their general policy, the Agencies hope to assist those 

who need to predict whether the Agencies will challenge a practice as anticompetitive. However, 

these Guidelines cannot remove judgment and discretion in antitrust law enforcement. The 

Agencies will evaluate each case in light of its own facts and apply these Guidelines reasonably 

and flexibly.2

In the United States, patents confer rights to exclude others from making, using, or selling in the 

United States the invention claimed by the patent for a set period of time.3 To gain patent 

protection, an invention (which may be a product, process, machine, or composition of matter) 

must be novel,4 nonobvious,5 useful,

6 and sufficiently disclosed.7 Copyright protection applies to 

original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression.8 Copyright protection 

applies only to the expression, not the underlying ideas.9 Unlike a patent, which protects an 

invention not only from copying but also from subsequent independent creation by others, a 

 1 These Guidelines replace the “Antitrust Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property” issued on April 6, 

1995, by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. They do not cover the antitrust 

treatment of trademarks. Although the same general antitrust principles that apply to other forms of intellectual 

property apply to trademarks as well, these Guidelines deal with technology transfer and innovation-related issues 

that typically arise with respect to patents, copyrights, trade secrets, and know-how agreements, rather than with 

product-differentiation issues that typically arise with respect to trademarks. 2 As is the case with all guidelines, users should rely on qualified counsel to assist them in evaluating the antitrust 

risk associated with any contemplated transaction or activity. No set of guidelines can possibly indicate how the 

Agencies will assess the particular facts of every case. Parties who wish to know the Agencies’ specific enforcement 

intentions with respect to any particular transaction in which they are involved should consider seeking a 

Department of Justice business review letter pursuant to 28 C.F.R. § 50.6 or a Federal Trade Commission Advisory 

Opinion pursuant to 16 C.F.R. §§ 1.1-1.4. 3 See, e.g., 35 U.S.C. § 154(a)(2), (c)(1) (2012); id. § 173. 4 See id. § 102. 5 See id. § 103. 6 See id. § 101. 7 See id. § 112. 8 See 17 U.S.C. § 102 (2012). Copyright protection lasts for a set period of time. See id. § 302(a), (c). The principles

stated in these Guidelines also apply to protection of mask works fixed in a semiconductor chip product (see id. 

§§ 901-914), which is analogous to copyright protection for works of authorship. 9 See id. § 102(b). Copyright protection extends to literary works, musical works, dramatic works, pantomimes and 

choreographic works, pictorial, graphic and sculptural works, motion pictures and other audiovisual works, sound 

recordings, and architectural works. Id. § 102(a).
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copyright does not preclude others from independently creating similar expression. Trade secret 

protection applies to information whose economic value depends on its not being generally 

known.10 Trade secret protection is conditioned upon efforts to maintain secrecy and has no 

fixed term. As with copyright protection, trade secret protection does not preclude independent 

creation by others.

The intellectual property laws and the antitrust laws share the common purpose of promoting 

innovation and enhancing consumer welfare.11 The intellectual property laws provide incentives 

for innovation and its dissemination and commercialization by establishing enforceable property 

rights for the creators of new and useful products, more efficient processes, and original works 

of expression. In the absence of intellectual property rights, imitators could more rapidly exploit 

the efforts of innovators and investors without providing compensation. Rapid imitation would 

reduce the commercial value of innovation and erode incentives to invest, ultimately to the 

detriment of consumers. The antitrust laws promote innovation and consumer welfare by 

prohibiting certain actions that may harm competition with respect to either existing or new 

ways of serving consumers.

2 General Principles

2.0 These Guidelines embody three general principles: (a) for the purpose of antitrust analysis, 

the Agencies apply the same analysis to conduct involving intellectual property as to conduct 

involving other forms of property, taking into account the specific characteristics of a particular 

property right; (b) the Agencies do not presume that intellectual property creates market power 

in the antitrust context; and (c) the Agencies recognize that intellectual property licensing allows 

firms to combine complementary factors of production and is generally procompetitive.

 10 Federal law creates a private cause of action for the misappropriation of trade secrets. Defend Trade Secrets Act 

of 2016, Pub. L. No. 114-153, § 2(a), 130 Stat. 376, 376-80 (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1836(b)). Trade secret protection 

also derives from state law. See generally Kewanee Oil Co. v. Bicron Corp., 416 U.S. 470 (1974); see also Defend 

Trade Secrets Act § 2(f) (“Nothing in the amendments made by this section shall be construed . . . to preempt any 

other provision of law.”). 11 “[T]he aims and objectives of patent and antitrust laws may seem, at first glance, wholly at odds. However, the 

two bodies of law are actually complementary, as both are aimed at encouraging innovation, industry and 

competition.” Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of Am., Inc., 897 F.2d 1572, 1576 (Fed. Cir. 1990); see also Intergraph 

Corp. v. Intel Corp., 195 F.3d 1346, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 1999) (“The patent and antitrust laws are complementary, the 

patent system serving to encourage invention and the bringing of new products to market by adjusting 

investment-based risk, and the antitrust laws serving to foster industrial competition.”).
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2.1 Standard Antitrust Analysis Applies to Intellectual Property

The Agencies apply the same general antitrust principles to conduct involving intellectual 

property that they apply to conduct involving any other form of property. That is not to say that 

intellectual property is in all respects the same as any other form of property. Intellectual 

property has important characteristics, such as ease of misappropriation, that distinguish it from 

many other forms of property. These characteristics can be taken into account by standard 

antitrust analysis, however, and do not require the application of fundamentally different 

principles.12

Although there are clear and important differences in the purpose, extent, and duration of 

protection provided under the intellectual property regimes of patent, copyright, and trade 

secret, the governing antitrust principles are the same. Antitrust analysis takes differences 

among these forms of intellectual property into account in evaluating the specific market 

circumstances in which transactions occur, just as it does with other particular market 

circumstances.

Intellectual property law bestows on the owners of intellectual property certain rights to 

exclude others. These rights help the owners to profit from the use of their property. An 

intellectual property owner’s rights to exclude are similar to the rights enjoyed by owners of 

other forms of private property. The antitrust laws generally do not impose liability upon a firm

for a unilateral refusal to assist its competitors, in part because doing so may undermine 

incentives for investment and innovation.13 As with other forms of private property, certain 

types of conduct with respect to intellectual property may have anticompetitive effects against 

which the antitrust laws can and do protect. The exercise of intellectual property rights is thus 

neither particularly free from scrutiny under the antitrust laws, nor particularly suspect under 

them. 

 12 As with other forms of property, the power to exclude others from the use of intellectual property may vary 

substantially, depending on the nature of the property and its status under federal or state law. The greater or 

lesser legal power of an owner to exclude others is also taken into account by standard antitrust analysis, as

explained in this section of the Guidelines.

13 Verizon Commc’ns Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP, 540 U.S. 398, 407-08 (2004); United States v. 

Colgate & Co., 250 U.S. 300, 307 (1919); U.S. DEP’T OF JUSTICE & FED. TRADE COMM’N, ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT AND 

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS: PROMOTING INNOVATION AND COMPETITION 27-28 (2007), 

https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/atr/legacy/2007/07/11/222655.pdf [hereinafter 2007 ANTITRUST-IP

REPORT].
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The Agencies recognize that the licensing of intellectual property is often global. Consideration 

of whether the U.S. antitrust laws apply to such intellectual property-related conduct and 

whether international comity or the involvement of a foreign government counsels against 

investigation or enforcement may be necessary.

14 When the Agencies determine that a 

sufficient nexus to the United States exists to apply the antitrust laws and that considerations of 

international comity and foreign government involvement do not preclude investigation or 

enforcement, the principles of antitrust analysis described in these Guidelines apply equally to 

all licensing arrangements. 

2.2 Intellectual Property and Market Power

Market power is the ability profitably to maintain prices above, or output below, competitive 

levels for a significant period of time.15 The Agencies will not presume that a patent, copyright, 

or trade secret necessarily confers market power upon its owner. Although the intellectual 

property right confers the power to exclude with respect to the specific product, process, or 

work in question, there will often be sufficient actual or potential close substitutes for such 

product, process, or work to prevent the exercise of market power.16 If an intellectual property 

right does confer market power, that market power does not by itself offend the antitrust laws. 

As with any other asset that enables its owner to obtain significant supracompetitive profits, 

market power (or even a monopoly) that is solely “a consequence of a superior product, 

business acumen, or historic accident” does not violate the antitrust laws.17 Nor does such 

market power impose on the intellectual property owner an obligation to license the use of that 

property to others. As in other antitrust contexts, however, an intellectual property owner could 

illegally acquire or maintain market power. Furthermore, even if it lawfully acquired or 

 14 For further guidance on these considerations, see the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission 

Antitrust Guidelines for International Enforcement and Cooperation (2017). 15 Market power can be exercised in other economic dimensions, such as quality, service, and the development of 

new or improved goods and processes. It is assumed in this definition that all competitive dimensions are held 

constant except the ones in which market power is being exercised; that a seller is able to charge higher prices for 

a higher-quality product does not alone indicate market power. The definition in the text is stated in terms of a 

seller with market power. A buyer could also exercise market power (e.g., by maintaining the price below the 

competitive level, thereby depressing output).

16 Ill. Tool Works Inc. v. Indep. Ink, Inc., 547 U.S. 28, 45-46 (2006) (“Congress, the antitrust enforcement agencies, 

and most economists have all reached the conclusion that a patent does not necessarily confer market power 

upon the patentee. Today, we reach the same conclusion.”); see also Mediacom Commc’ns Corp. v. Sinclair Broad.

Grp., 460 F. Supp. 2d 1012, 1027-28 (S.D. Iowa 2006) (applying Independent Ink to copyright). 17 United States v. Grinnell Corp., 384 U.S. 563, 570-71 (1966); see also United States v. Aluminum Co. of Am., 148 

F.2d 416, 430 (2d Cir. 1945) (holding that the Sherman Act is not violated by the attainment of market power solely 

through “superior skill, foresight and industry”).
5

maintained that power, the owner could still engage in anticompetitive conduct in connection 

with such property.

2.3 Procompetitive Benefits of Licensing

Intellectual property typically is one component among many in a production process and 

derives value from its combination with complementary factors. Complementary factors of 

production include manufacturing and distribution facilities, workforces, and other items of 

intellectual property. The owner of intellectual property has to arrange for its combination with 

other necessary factors to realize its commercial value. Often, the owner finds it most efficient 

to contract with others for these factors, to sell rights to the intellectual property, or to enter 

into a joint venture arrangement for the development of the intellectual property, rather than 

supplying these complementary factors itself.

Licensing, cross-licensing, or otherwise transferring intellectual property (hereinafter “licensing”) 

can facilitate integration of the licensed property with complementary factors of production. 

This integration can lead to more efficient exploitation of the intellectual property, benefiting 

consumers through the reduction of costs and the introduction of new products. Such 

arrangements increase the value of intellectual property to consumers and owners. Licensing 

can allow an innovator to capture returns from its investment in making and developing an 

invention through royalty payments from those that practice its invention, thus providing an 

incentive to invest in innovative efforts.18

Sometimes the use of one item of intellectual property requires access to another. An item of 

intellectual property “blocks” another when the second cannot be practiced without using the 

first. For example, a patent on a machine may block an improved version of that machine. 

Licensing may promote the development of such technologies that are otherwise in a blocking 

relationship.

Field-of-use, territorial, and other limitations on intellectual property licenses may serve 

procompetitive ends by allowing the licensor to exploit its property as efficiently and effectively 

as possible. These various forms of exclusivity can be used to give a licensee an incentive to 

invest in the commercialization and distribution of products embodying the licensed intellectual 

 18 FED. TRADE COMM’N, THE EVOLVING IP MARKETPLACE: ALIGNING PATENT NOTICE AND REMEDIES WITH COMPETITION 40 (2011), 

https://www.ftc.gov/reports/evolving-ip-marketplace-aligning-patent-notice-remedies-competition.
6

property and to develop additional applications for the licensed property. The restrictions may 

do so, for example, by protecting the licensee against free riding on the licensee’s investments 

by other licensees or by the licensor. They may also increase the licensor’s incentive to license, 

for example, by protecting the licensor from competition in the licensor’s own technology in a 

market niche that it prefers to keep to itself. These benefits of licensing restrictions apply to 

patent, copyright, and trade secret licenses, and to know-how agreements.

Example 119

Situation: ComputerCo develops a new, copyrighted software program for inventory 

management. The program has wide application in the health field. ComputerCo licenses the 

program in an arrangement that imposes both field of use and territorial limitations. Some of 

ComputerCo’s licenses permit use only in hospitals; others permit use only in group medical 

practices. ComputerCo charges different royalties for the different uses. All of ComputerCo’s 

licenses permit use only in specified portions of the United States and in specified foreign 

countries.20 The licenses contain no provisions that would prevent or discourage licensees from 

developing, using, or selling any other program, or from competing in any other good or service 

other than in the use of the licensed program. None of the licensees is an actual or potential 

competitor of ComputerCo in the sale of inventory management programs.

Discussion: The licenses at issue appear to facilitate the combination of ComputerCo’s 

copyrighted software with the licensee health care providers’ complementary factors of 

production and may offer potential procompetitive benefits. The key competitive issue raised by 

the licensing arrangement is whether it includes any provisions that are likely to harm 

competition among entities that would have been actual or potential competitors in the 

absence of the arrangement. Such harm could occur if, for example, the licenses 

anticompetitively foreclose access to competing technologies (in this case, most likely 

competing computer programs), prevent licensees from developing their own competing 

technologies (again, in this case, most likely computer programs), or facilitate market allocation 

 19 The examples in these Guidelines are hypothetical and do not represent judgments about, or analysis of, any 

actual market circumstances of the named industries.

20 These Guidelines do not address the possible application of the antitrust laws of other countries to restraints 

such as territorial restrictions in international licensing arrangements. 
7

or price-fixing for any product or service supplied by the licensees.21 If the license agreements 

contained any such provision, the Agency evaluating the arrangement would analyze its likely 

competitive effects as described in parts 3-5 of these Guidelines. 

In this hypothetical, there are no such provisions and thus the licensing arrangement does not 

appear likely to harm competition among entities that would have been actual or potential 

competitors if ComputerCo had chosen not to license the software program. The arrangement is 

merely a subdivision of the licensor’s intellectual property among different fields of use and 

territories. The Agency therefore would be unlikely to object to this arrangement.22 The 

Agency’s conclusion as to likely competitive effects could differ if, for example, the license 

barred licensees from using any other inventory management program.

3 Antitrust Concerns and Modes of Analysis

3.1 Nature of the Concerns

While intellectual property licensing arrangements are typically welfare-enhancing and 

procompetitive, antitrust concerns may nonetheless arise. For example, a licensing arrangement 

could include restraints that adversely affect competition in goods markets by dividing the 

markets among firms that would have competed using different technologies.23 An arrangement 

that effectively merges the activities of two actual or potential competitors in research and 

development in the relevant field might harm competition for development of new goods and 

services.

24 An acquisition of intellectual property may lessen competition in a relevant antitrust 

market.

25 The Agencies will focus on the actual or likely effects of an arrangement, not on its 

formal terms.

The Agencies ordinarily will not require the owner of intellectual property to create competition 

in its own technology.

26 However, antitrust concerns may arise when a licensing arrangement 

 21 See section 3.1. 22 The antitrust analysis of the facts in this hypothetical would not differ, regardless of whether the technology was 

protected by patent, copyright, or trade secret.

23 See, e.g., Example 6. 24 See section 3.2.3. 25 See section 5.7. 26 Moreover, as noted in section 2.2 above, “market power [does not] impose on the intellectual property owner 

an obligation to license the use of that property to others.” The Agencies may, however, impose licensing 

requirements to remedy anticompetitive harm or, in the case of a merger, to prevent the substantial lessening of 
8

harms competition among entities that would have been actual or potential competitors27 in a 

relevant market in the absence of the license (entities in a “horizontal relationship”). A restraint 

in a licensing arrangement may harm such competition, for example, if it facilitates market 

division or price-fixing. In addition, license restrictions with respect to one market may harm 

such competition in another market by anticompetitively foreclosing access to, or significantly 

raising the price of, an important input,28 or by facilitating coordination to increase price or 

reduce output. When it appears that such competition may be adversely affected, the Agencies 

will follow the analysis set forth below.

29 

3.2 Markets Affected by Licensing Arrangements

Licensing arrangements raise concerns under the antitrust laws if they are likely to affect 

adversely the prices, quantities, qualities, or varieties of goods and services30 either currently or 

potentially available. If an arrangement appears likely to have anticompetitive effects, the

Agencies normally will identify one or more relevant markets in which the effects are likely to 

occur. The Agencies will typically analyze the competitive effects of licensing arrangements 

within the relevant markets for the goods affected by the arrangements. In other cases, 

however, the Agencies may analyze the effects within a market for technology or a market for 

research and development.

3.2.1 Goods Markets

A number of different goods markets may be relevant to evaluating the effects of a licensing 

arrangement. A restraint in a licensing arrangement may have competitive effects in markets for 

 

competition. Any licensing remedy assessment will be specific to the facts of the particular case at issue and 

tailored to address the competitive harm. 

27 In the context of intellectual property licensing, the type and extent of evidence needed to determine whether a 

firm is a potential competitor will vary with the circumstances. A firm will be treated as a potential competitor if 

the Agency finds that it is reasonably probable that the firm would have become a competitor in the absence of 

the licensing arrangement. In some contexts, however, the elimination of a would-be competitor is subject to 

condemnation by antitrust law even though the firm’s prospects may be uncertain. See, e.g., FTC v. Actavis, Inc., 

133 S. Ct. 2223, 2236 (2013) (holding that a large unexplained payment by a branded drug monopolist to a 

prospective generic drug manufacturer that “likely seeks to prevent the risk of competition . . . constitutes the 

relevant anticompetitive harm”); United States v. Microsoft Corp., 253 F.3d 34, 79 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (en banc) (per 

curiam) (“[I]t would be inimical to the purpose of the Sherman Act to allow monopolists free reign to squash 

nascent, albeit unproven, competitors at will . . . .”). 28 As used herein, “input” includes outlets for distribution and sales, as well as factors of production. See, e.g., 

sections 4.1.1 and 5.3-5.5 for further discussion of conditions under which foreclosing access to, or raising the 

price of, an input may harm competition in a relevant market. 29 See generally sections 3.4; 4.2. 30 Hereinafter, the term “goods” also includes services.
9

final or intermediate goods made using the intellectual property, or it may have effects 

upstream, in markets for goods that are used as inputs, along with the intellectual property, to 

the production of other goods. In general, for goods markets affected by a licensing 

arrangement, the Agencies will approach the delineation of relevant market and the 

measurement of market share as in sections 4 and 5 of the U.S. Department of Justice and 

Federal Trade Commission Horizontal Merger Guidelines.31

3.2.2 Technology Markets

Technology markets consist of the intellectual property that is licensed (the “licensed 

technology”) and its close substitutes—that is, the technologies or goods that are close enough 

substitutes to constrain significantly the exercise of market power with respect to the 

intellectual property that is licensed.32 When rights to intellectual property are marketed 

separately from the products in which they are used,33 the Agencies may analyze the 

competitive effects of a licensing arrangement in a technology market.

34

Example 2

Situation: Firms Alpha and Beta independently develop different patented process technologies 

to manufacture the same off-patent drug for the treatment of a particular disease. Before the 

firms use their technologies internally or license them to third parties, they announce plans 

jointly to manufacture the drug, and to assign their manufacturing processes to the new 

manufacturing venture. Many firms are capable of using and have the incentive to use the 

 31 U.S. DEP’T OF JUSTICE & FED. TRADE COMM’N, HORIZONTAL MERGER GUIDELINES (2010), 

https://www.justice.gov/atr/file/810276/download [hereinafter 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines]. As stated in 

section 5.2 of the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines, “in most contexts, the Agencies measure each firm’s market 

share based on its actual or projected revenues in the relevant market.” However, market shares may also be 

measured through unit sales, capacity, or reserves when these approaches are more reflective of the competitive 

significance of suppliers than revenues. 32 For example, the owner of a process for producing a particular good may be constrained in its conduct with 

respect to that process not only by other processes for making that good, but also by other goods that compete 

with the downstream good and by the processes used to produce those other goods.

33 Intellectual property is often licensed, sold, or transferred as an integral part of a marketed good. An example is 

a patented product marketed with an implied license permitting its use. In such circumstances, there is no need for 

a separate analysis of technology markets to capture relevant competitive effects.

34 Courts have defined technology markets in a number of cases. See, e.g., Broadcom Corp. v. Qualcomm Inc., 

501 F.3d 297, 315 (3d Cir. 2007); Apple Inc. v. Samsung Elecs. Co., No. 11-CV-01846, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67102, at 

*19-23 (N.D. Cal. May 14, 2012); Hynix Semiconductor Inc. v. Rambus Inc., 2008-1 Trade Cas. (CCH) ¶ 76,047, 2008 

WL 73689, at *2-8 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 5, 2008); In re Papst Licensing, GmbH Patent Litig., No. Civ.A.99-3118, 2000 WL 

1145725, at *6-7 (E.D. La. Aug. 11, 2000).
10

licensed technologies to manufacture and distribute the drug; thus, the market for drug 

manufacturing and distribution is competitive.

Discussion: To evaluate the competitive effects and delineate a relevant market, the Agencies 

will identify a technology’s close substitutes. The Agencies will, if the data permit, identify a 

group of technologies and goods over which a hypothetical monopolist of those technologies 

and goods likely would exercise market power—for example, by imposing a small but significant 

and nontransitory price increase.35 The Agencies recognize that technology often is licensed in 

ways that are not readily quantifiable in monetary terms.36 In such circumstances, the Agencies 

will delineate the relevant market by identifying other technologies and goods that are 

reasonable substitutes for the licensed technology.

In assessing the competitive significance of current and potential participants in a technology 

market, the Agencies will take into account all relevant evidence. When market share data are 

available and accurately reflect the competitive significance of market participants, the Agencies 

will include market share data in this assessment. The Agencies also will seek evidence of buyers’ 

and market participants’ assessments of the competitive significance of technology market 

participants. Such evidence is particularly important when market share data are unavailable, or 

do not accurately represent the competitive significance of market participants. When market 

share data or other indicia of market power are not available, and it appears that competing 

technologies are comparably efficient,37 the Agencies will assign each technology the same 

market share. 

In this example, the structural effect of the joint venture in the relevant goods market for the 

manufacture and distribution of the drug is unlikely to be significant, because many firms in 

addition to the joint venture compete in that market.38 The joint venture might increase the 

 35 This is conceptually analogous to the analytical approach to goods markets under section 4.1.1 of the 

2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines, supra note 31. Of course, market power also can be exercised in other 

dimensions, such as quality, and these dimensions also may be relevant to the definition and analysis of 

technology markets.

36 For example, technology may be licensed royalty-free in exchange for the right to use other technology, or it 

may be licensed as part of a package license.

37 The Agencies will regard two technologies as “comparably efficient” if they can be used to produce close 

substitutes at comparable costs. 38 See Example 3 for a discussion of the Agencies’ approach to joint venture analysis.
11

prices of the drug produced using Alpha’s or Beta’s technology by reducing competition in the 

relevant market for technology to manufacture the drug.39

The Agency would delineate a technology market in which to evaluate likely competitive effects 

of the proposed joint venture. The Agency would identify other technologies that can be used to 

make the drug and evaluate the levels of effectiveness and cost per dose relative to that of the 

technologies owned by Alpha and Beta. In addition, the Agency would consider the extent to 

which competition from other drugs that are substitutes for the drug produced using Alpha’s or 

Beta’s technology would limit the ability of a hypothetical monopolist that owned both Alpha’s 

and Beta’s technology to raise its price for the license.

3.2.3 Research and Development Markets

If a licensing arrangement may adversely affect competition to develop new or improved goods 

or processes, the Agencies may analyze such an impact as a competitive effect in a separate 

research and development market. A licensing arrangement may have competitive effects on 

research and development that cannot be adequately addressed through the analysis of goods 

or technology markets. For example, the arrangement may affect innovation that is related to 

research to identify a commercializable product or to the development of particular goods or 

services.40 Alternatively, the arrangement may affect the development of new or improved 

goods or processes in geographic markets where there is no actual or potential competition in 

the relevant goods.41

A research and development market consists of the assets comprising research and 

development related to the identification of a commercializable product, or directed to 

particular new or improved goods or processes, and the close substitutes for that research and 

development. When research and development is directed to particular new or improved goods 

or processes, the close substitutes may include research and development efforts, technologies, 

 39 See, e.g., Summit Tech., Inc., 127 F.T.C. 208 (1999). 40 For example, the FTC has identified and referred to research and development markets in the following matters: 

Complaint, Amgen Inc., 134 F.T.C. 333, 337-39 (2002) (identifying a research and development market for 

inhibitors of cytokines that promote the inflammation of human tissue); Wright Med. Tech., Inc., Proposed 

Consent Agreement with Analysis to Aid Public Comment, 60 Fed. Reg. 460, 463 (Jan. 4, 1995) (identifying a 

research and development market for orthopedic implants for use in human hands); Am. Home Prods. Corp.,

Proposed Consent Agreement with Analysis to Aid Public Comment, 59 Fed. Reg. 60,807, 60,815 (Nov. 28, 1994) 

(identifying a research and development market for, among other things, rotavirus vaccines).

41 See Complaint, United States v. Gen. Motors Corp., Civ. No. 93-530 (D. Del. Nov. 16, 1993).
12

and goods42 that significantly constrain the exercise of market power with respect to the 

relevant research and development, for example by limiting the ability and incentive of a 

hypothetical monopolist to reduce the pace of research and development. The Agencies will 

delineate a research and development market only when the capabilities to engage in the 

relevant research and development can be associated with specialized assets or characteristics 

of specific firms.

In assessing the competitive significance of current and potential participants in a research and 

development market, the Agencies will take into account all relevant evidence. When market 

share data are available and accurately reflect the competitive significance of market 

participants, the Agencies will include market share data in this assessment. The Agencies also 

will seek evidence of buyers’ and market participants’ assessments of the competitive 

significance of research and development market participants. Such evidence is particularly 

important when market share data are unavailable or do not accurately represent the 

competitive significance of market participants. The Agencies may base the market shares of 

participants in a research and development market on their shares of identifiable assets or 

characteristics upon which innovation depends, for example, on shares of research and 

development expenditures, or on shares of a related product. When entities have comparable 

capabilities and incentives to pursue research and development that is a close substitute for the 

research and development activities of the parties to a licensing arrangement, the Agencies may 

assign equal market shares to such entities.

Example 3

Situation: Three of the largest producers of a plastic used in disposable bottles plan to engage in 

joint research and development to produce a new type of plastic that is rapidly biodegradable. 

The joint venture will grant to its partners (but to no one else) licenses to all patent rights and 

use of know-how. The Agency is evaluating the likely competitive effects of the proposed joint 

venture.

 42 For example, the licensor of intellectual property relating to research and development may be constrained in its 

conduct not only by competing research and development efforts but also by other existing goods that would 

compete with the goods under development.
13

Discussion: The Agency would analyze the proposed research and development joint venture 

using an analysis similar to that applied to other joint ventures.43

In this case, the Agency would assess whether the joint venture is likely to have anticompetitive 

effects. The Agency would seek to identify any other entities that would be actual or potential 

competitors with the joint venture in a relevant market. This would include those firms that 

have the capability and incentive to undertake research and development closely substitutable 

for the research and development proposed to be undertaken by the joint venture, taking into 

account such firms’ existing technologies and technologies under development, R&D facilities, 

and other relevant assets and business circumstances. Firms possessing such capabilities and 

incentives would be included in a research and development market even if they are not 

competitors in relevant markets for related goods, such as the plastics currently produced by 

the parties to the joint venture, although competitors in existing goods markets may often also 

compete in related research and development markets.

The Agency would consider the degree of concentration in the relevant research and 

development market and the market shares of the parties to the joint venture. If, in addition to 

the parties to the joint venture (taken collectively), there are at least four other independently 

controlled entities that possess comparable capabilities and incentives to undertake research 

and development of biodegradable plastics, or other products that would be close substitutes 

for such new plastics, the joint venture ordinarily would be unlikely to adversely affect 

competition in the relevant research and development market.44 If there are fewer than four 

other independently controlled entities with similar capabilities and incentives, the Agency 

would consider whether the joint venture would give the parties to the joint venture an 

incentive and ability collectively to reduce investment in, or otherwise to retard the pace or 

scope of, research and development efforts. If the joint venture creates a significant risk of 

anticompetitive effects in the research and development market, the Agency would proceed to 

 43 See generally U.S. DEP’T OF JUSTICE & FED. TRADE COMM’N, ANTITRUST GUIDELINES FOR COLLABORATIONS AMONG 

COMPETITORS (2000), http://www.ftc.gov/os/2000/04/ftcdojguidelines.pdf; id. at 1, n.2 (The Intellectual Property 

Guidelines “outline the Agencies’ enforcement policy with respect to intellectual property licensing agreements 

among competitors, among other things.”). Also, this type of transaction may qualify for treatment under the 

National Cooperative Research Act of 1984 and the National Cooperative Production Amendments of 1993 

(codified as amended at 15 U.S.C.A. §§ 4301-4305) (applying a reasonableness standard to the conduct of “any 

person in making or performing a contract to carry out a joint venture”).

44 Cf. section 4.3.
14

consider efficiency justifications for the venture, such as the potential for combining 

complementary R&D assets in such a way as to make successful innovation more likely, or to 

bring it about sooner, or to achieve cost reductions in research and development.

The Agency would also assess the likelihood that the joint venture would adversely affect 

competition in other relevant markets, including markets for products produced by the parties 

to the joint venture. The risk of such adverse competitive effects would be increased to the 

extent that, for example, the joint venture facilitates the exchange among the parties of 

competitively sensitive information relating to goods markets in which the parties currently 

compete or facilitates the coordination of competitive activities in such markets. The Agency 

would examine whether the joint venture imposes collateral restraints that might significantly 

restrict competition among the joint venturers in goods markets, and would examine whether 

such collateral restraints were reasonably necessary to achieve any efficiencies that are likely to 

be attained by the venture.

3.3 Horizontal and Vertical Relationships

As with other property arrangements, antitrust analysis of intellectual property licensing 

arrangements examines whether the relationship among the parties to the arrangement is 

primarily horizontal or vertical in nature, or whether it has substantial aspects of both. A 

licensing arrangement has a vertical component when it affects activities that are in a 

complementary relationship, as is typically the case in a licensing arrangement. For example, the 

licensor’s primary line of business may be in research and development, and the licensees, as 

manufacturers, may be buying the rights to use technology developed by the licensor. 

Alternatively, the licensor may be a component manufacturer owning intellectual property 

rights in a product that the licensee manufactures by combining the component with other 

inputs, or the licensor may manufacture the product, and the licensees may operate primarily in 

distribution and marketing.

In addition to this vertical component, a licensing arrangement may also have a horizontal 

component. For analytical purposes, the Agencies ordinarily will treat a relationship between a 

licensor and its licensees, or between licensees, as having a horizontal component when they 

would have been actual or potential competitors in a relevant market in the absence of the 

license, even if a vertical relationship also exists.
15

The existence of a horizontal relationship between a licensor and its licensees does not, in itself, 

indicate that the arrangement is anticompetitive. Identification of such relationships is merely 

an aid in determining whether there may be anticompetitive effects arising from a licensing 

arrangement. Such a relationship need not give rise to an anticompetitive effect, nor does a 

purely vertical relationship assure that there are no anticompetitive effects.

The following examples illustrate different competitive relationships among a licensor and its 

licensees.

Example 4

Situation: AgCo, a manufacturer of farm equipment, develops a new, patented emission control 

technology for its tractor engines and licenses it to FarmCo, another farm equipment 

manufacturer. AgCo’s emission control technology is far superior to the technology currently 

owned and used by FarmCo, so much so that FarmCo’s technology does not significantly 

constrain the prices that AgCo could charge for its technology. AgCo’s emission control patent 

has a broad scope. FarmCo does not contest the validity or enforceability of AgCo’s patent, and 

acknowledges that any improved emissions control technology it could develop in the 

foreseeable future would infringe AgCo’s patent.

Discussion: Because FarmCo’s emission control technology does not significantly constrain 

AgCo’s competitive conduct with respect to its emission control technology, AgCo’s and 

FarmCo’s emission control technologies are not close substitutes for each other. FarmCo is a 

consumer of AgCo’s technology and is not an actual competitor of AgCo in the relevant market 

for superior emission control technology of the kind licensed by AgCo. Furthermore, FarmCo is 

not a potential competitor of AgCo in that relevant market because FarmCo cannot develop an 

improved emission control technology without infringing AgCo’s patent. This means that the 

relationship between AgCo and FarmCo with regard to the supply and use of superior emissions 

control technology is vertical. Assuming that AgCo and FarmCo are actual or potential 

competitors in sales of farm equipment products, their relationship is horizontal in the relevant 

markets for farm equipment.
16

Example 5

Situation: FarmCo develops a new valve technology for its engines and enters into a crosslicensing arrangement with AgCo, whereby AgCo licenses its emission control technology to 

FarmCo and FarmCo licenses its valve technology to AgCo. AgCo already owns an alternative 

valve technology that can be used to achieve engine performance similar to that using FarmCo’s 

valve technology and at a comparable cost to consumers. Before adopting FarmCo’s technology, 

AgCo was using its own valve technology in its production of engines and was licensing (and 

continues to license) that technology for use by others. As in Example 4, FarmCo does not own 

or control an emission control technology that is a close substitute for the technology licensed 

from AgCo. Furthermore, as in Example 4, FarmCo cannot develop an improved emission control 

technology that would be a close substitute for AgCo’s technology, without infringing AgCo’s 

patent.

Discussion: FarmCo is a consumer and not a competitor of AgCo’s superior emission control 

technology. As in Example 4, their relationship is vertical with regard to this technology. The 

relationship between AgCo and FarmCo in the relevant market that includes engine valve 

technology is vertical in part and horizontal in part. It is vertical in part because AgCo and 

FarmCo stand in a complementary relationship, in which AgCo is a consumer of a technology 

supplied by FarmCo. However, the relationship between AgCo and FarmCo in the relevant 

market that includes engine valve technology is also horizontal in part, because FarmCo and 

AgCo are actual competitors in the licensing of valve technology that can be used to achieve 

similar engine performance at a comparable cost. Whether the firms license their valve 

technologies to others is not important for the conclusion that the firms have a horizontal 

relationship in this relevant market. Even if AgCo’s use of its valve technology were solely 

captive to its own production, the fact that the two valve technologies are substitutable at 

comparable cost means that the two firms have a horizontal relationship.

As in Example 4, the relationship between AgCo and FarmCo is also horizontal in the relevant 

markets for farm equipment.

3.4 Framework for Evaluating Licensing Restraints

In the vast majority of cases, restraints in intellectual property licensing arrangements are 

evaluated under the rule of reason. The Agencies’ general approach in analyzing a licensing 
17

restraint under the rule of reason is to inquire whether the restraint is likely to have 

anticompetitive effects and, if so, whether the restraint is reasonably necessary to achieve 

procompetitive benefits that outweigh those anticompetitive effects.45

In some cases, however, courts have concluded that a restraint’s “nature and necessary effect 

are so plainly anticompetitive” that it should be treated as unlawful per se, without an elaborate 

inquiry into the restraint’s likely competitive effect.

46 Among the restraints that have been held 

per se unlawful are naked price-fixing, output restraints, and market division among horizontal 

competitors, as well as certain group boycotts.

To determine whether a particular restraint in a licensing arrangement is given per se or rule of 

reason treatment, the Agencies will assess whether the restraint in question can be expected to 

contribute to an efficiency-enhancing integration of economic activity.47 In general, licensing 

arrangements promote such integration because they facilitate the combination of the 

licensor’s intellectual property with complementary factors of production owned by the licensee.

A restraint in a licensing arrangement may further such integration by, for example, aligning the 

incentives of the licensor and the licensees to promote the development and marketing of the 

licensed technology, or by substantially reducing transactions costs. If there is no efficiencyenhancing integration of economic activity and if the type of restraint is one that has been 

accorded per se treatment, the Agencies will challenge the restraint under the per se rule. 

Otherwise, the Agencies will apply a rule of reason analysis.

Application of the rule of reason requires an inquiry into the likely competitive effects of the 

conduct in question.48 However, as the Supreme Court has noted, “‘[t]here is always something 

of a sliding scale in appraising reasonableness,’ and as such, ‘the quality of proof required 

should vary with the circumstances’”;49 what is required “is an enquiry meet for the case, 

 45 See, e.g., Leegin Creative Leather Prods., Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., 551 U.S. 877 (2007); FTC v. Ind. Fed’n of Dentists, 

476 U.S. 447 (1986); NCAA v. Bd. of Regents of the Univ. of Okla., 468 U.S. 85 (1984); Broad. Music, Inc. v. 

Columbia Broad. Sys., Inc., 441 U.S. 1 (1979); 7 PHILLIP E. AREEDA & HERBERT HOVENKAMP, ANTITRUST LAW § 1502 (3d ed. 

2010); see also part 4. 46 FTC v. Super. Ct. Trial Lawyers Ass’n, 493 U.S. 411, 433 (1990); Nat’l Soc. of Prof’l Eng’rs v. United States, 435 U.S. 

679, 692 (1978). 47 See Broad. Music, 441 U.S. at 16-24. 48 See sections 4.1-4.3. 49 FTC v. Actavis, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 2223, 2237-38 (2013) (alteration in original) (quoting Cal. Dental Ass’n v. FTC, 

526 U.S. 756, 780 (1999)).
18

looking to the circumstances, details, and logic of a restraint.”50 If the Agencies conclude that a 

restraint has no likely anticompetitive effects, they will treat it as reasonable, without an 

elaborate analysis of market power or the justifications for the restraint. Similarly, if a restraint 

facially appears to be of a kind that would always or almost always tend to reduce output or 

increase prices, and the restraint is not reasonably related to efficiencies, the Agencies will likely 

challenge the restraint without an elaborate analysis of particular industry circumstances.51

Example 6

Situation: Gamma, which manufactures Product X using its patented process, offers a license 

for its process technology to every other manufacturer of Product X, each of which competes 

worldwide with Gamma in the manufacture and sale of X. The process technology does not 

represent an economic improvement over the available existing technologies. Indeed, although 

most manufacturers accept licenses from Gamma, none of the licensees actually uses the 

licensed technology. The licenses provide that each manufacturer has an exclusive right to sell 

Product X manufactured using the licensed technology in a designated geographic area and that 

no manufacturer may sell Product X, however manufactured, outside the designated territory.

Discussion: The manufacturers of Product X are in a horizontal relationship in the goods market 

for Product X. Any manufacturers of Product X that control technologies that are substitutable 

at comparable cost for Gamma’s process are also horizontal competitors of Gamma in the 

relevant technology market. The licensees of Gamma’s process technology are formally in a 

vertical relationship with Gamma, although that is not significant in this example because they 

do not actually use Gamma’s technology.

The licensing arrangement restricts competition in the relevant goods market among 

manufacturers of Product X by requiring each manufacturer to limit its sales to an exclusive 

territory. Thus, competition among entities that would be actual competitors in the absence of 

the licensing arrangement is restricted. Based on the facts set forth above, the licensing 

 50 Cal. Dental, 526 U.S. at 781. 51 See FTC v. Ind. Fed’n of Dentists, 476 U.S. 447, 459-62 (1986); NCAA v. Bd. of Regents of the Univ. of Okla., 

468 U.S. 85, 109-10 (1984); see also Cal. Dental, 526 U.S. at 779 (“Although we have said that a challenge to a 

‘naked restraint on price and output’ need not be supported by ‘a detailed market analysis’ in order to ‘requir[e]

some competitive justification,’ it does not follow that every case attacking a less obviously anticompetitive 

restraint . . . is a candidate for plenary market examination.” (alteration in original) (citation omitted) (quoting 

NCAA, 468 U.S. at 110)).
19

arrangement does not involve a useful transfer of technology, and thus it is unlikely that the 

restraint on sales outside the designated territories contributes to an efficiency-enhancing 

integration of economic activity. Consequently, the evaluating Agency would be likely to 

challenge the arrangement under the per se rule as a horizontal territorial market allocation 

scheme and to view the intellectual property aspects of the arrangement as a sham intended to 

cloak its true nature.

If the licensing arrangement could be expected to contribute to an efficiency-enhancing 

integration of economic activity, as might be the case if the licensed technology were an 

advance over existing processes and used by the licensees, the Agency would analyze the 

arrangement under the rule of reason applying the analytical framework described in this 

section.

In this example, the competitive implications do not generally depend on whether the licensed 

technology is protected by patent, is a trade secret or other know-how, or is a computer 

program protected by copyright; nor do the competitive implications generally depend on 

whether the allocation of markets is territorial, as in this example, or functional, based on fields 

of use.

4 General Principles Concerning the Agencies’ Evaluation of Licensing 

Arrangements under the Rule of Reason

4.1 Analysis of Anticompetitive Effects

The existence of anticompetitive effects resulting from a restraint in a licensing arrangement will 

be evaluated on the basis of the analysis described in this section.

4.1.1 Market Structure, Coordination, and Foreclosure

When a licensing arrangement affects parties in a horizontal relationship, a restraint in that 

arrangement may increase the risk of coordinated pricing, output restrictions, or the acquisition 

or maintenance of market power. Harm to competition also may occur if the arrangement poses 

a significant risk of retarding or restricting the development of new or improved goods or 

processes. The potential for competitive harm depends in part on the degree of concentration in, 
20

the difficulty of entry into, and the responsiveness of supply and demand to changes in price in 

the relevant markets.52

When the licensor and licensees are in a vertical relationship, the Agencies will analyze whether 

the licensing arrangement may harm competition among entities in a horizontal relationship at 

either the level of the licensor or the licensees, or possibly in another relevant market. Harm to 

competition from a restraint may occur if it anticompetitively forecloses access to, or increases 

competitors’ costs of obtaining, important inputs, or facilitates coordination to raise price or 

restrict output. The risk of anticompetitively foreclosing access or increasing competitors’ costs 

is related to the proportion of the markets affected by the licensing restraint; other 

characteristics of the relevant markets, such as concentration, difficulty of entry, and the

responsiveness of supply and demand to changes in price in the relevant markets; and the 

duration of the restraint. A licensing arrangement does not foreclose competition merely 

because some or all of the potential licensees in an industry choose to use the licensed 

technology to the exclusion of other technologies. Exclusive use may be an efficient 

consequence of the licensed technology having the lowest cost or highest value.

Harm to competition from a restraint in a vertical licensing arrangement also may occur if a 

licensing restraint facilitates coordination among entities in a horizontal relationship to raise 

prices or reduce output in a relevant market. For example, if owners of competing technologies 

impose similar restraints on their licensees, the licensors may find it easier to coordinate their 

pricing. Similarly, licensees that are competitors may find it easier to coordinate their pricing if 

they are subject to common restraints in licenses with a common licensor or competing 

licensors. The risk of anticompetitive coordination is increased when the relevant markets are 

concentrated and difficult to enter. The use of similar restraints may be common and 

procompetitive in an industry, however, because they contribute to efficient exploitation of the 

licensed property.

4.1.2 Licensing Arrangements Involving Exclusivity

A licensing arrangement may involve exclusivity in two distinct respects. First, the licensor may 

grant an exclusive license, or one or more partially exclusive licenses (such as territorial or fieldof-use licenses), which limit the ability of the licensor to license others and possibly also to use 

 52 Cf. 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines, supra note 31, §§ 5, 9.
21

the technology itself. Generally, such exclusive licenses may raise antitrust concerns only if there 

is a horizontal relationship among licensors, or among licensees, or between the licensor and its 

licensee(s). Examples of arrangements involving exclusive licensing that may give rise to 

antitrust concerns include cross-licensing by competitors that collectively possess market power, 

grantbacks, and acquisitions of intellectual property rights.53

A non-exclusive license of intellectual property that does not contain any restraints on the 

competitive conduct of the licensor or the licensee generally does not present antitrust 

concerns. That principle holds true even if the parties to the license are in a horizontal 

relationship, because the non-exclusive license normally does not diminish competition that 

would occur in its absence.

A second form of exclusivity, exclusive dealing, arises when a license prevents or restrains the 

licensee from licensing, selling, distributing, or using competing technologies.54 Exclusivity may 

be achieved by an explicit exclusive dealing term in the license or by other provisions such as 

compensation terms or other economic incentives. Such restraints may anticompetitively 

foreclose access to, or increase competitors’ costs of obtaining, important inputs, or facilitate 

coordination to raise price or reduce output. But they also may have procompetitive effects. For 

example, a licensing arrangement that prevents the licensee from dealing in other technologies 

may encourage the licensee to develop and market the licensed technology or specialized 

applications of that technology.55 The Agencies will take into account such procompetitive 

effects in evaluating the reasonableness of the arrangement.56

The antitrust principles that apply to a licensor’s grant of various forms of exclusivity to and 

among its licensees are similar to those that apply to comparable vertical restraints outside the 

licensing context, such as exclusive territories and exclusive dealing. However, the fact that 

intellectual property may in some cases be misappropriated more easily than other forms of 

property may justify the use of some restrictions that might be anticompetitive in other contexts.

As noted earlier, the Agencies will focus on the actual practice and its effects, not on the formal 

terms of the arrangement. A license denominated as non-exclusive (either in the sense of 

 53 See sections 5.5, 5.6, and 5.7. 54 See section 5.4. 55 See, e.g., Example 7. 56 See section 4.2.
22

exclusive licensing or in the sense of exclusive dealing) may nonetheless give rise to the same 

concerns posed by formal exclusivity. A non-exclusive license may have the effect of exclusive 

licensing if it is structured so that the licensor is unlikely to license others or to practice the 

technology itself. A license that does not explicitly require exclusive dealing may have the effect 

of exclusive dealing if it is structured to increase significantly a licensee’s cost when it uses 

competing technologies. However, a licensing arrangement will not automatically raise these 

concerns merely because a party chooses to deal with a single licensor or licensee, or confines 

its activity to a single field of use or location, or because only a single licensee has chosen to 

take a license.

Example 7

Situation: NewCo, the inventor and manufacturer of a new flat panel display technology, lacking 

the capability to bring a flat panel display product to market, grants BigCo an exclusive license to 

sell a product embodying NewCo’s technology. BigCo does not currently sell, and is not 

developing (or likely to develop), a product that would compete with the product embodying 

the new technology and does not control rights to another display technology. Several firms 

offer competing displays, BigCo accounts for only a small proportion of the outlets for 

distribution of display products, and entry into the manufacture and distribution of display 

products is relatively easy. Demand for the new technology is uncertain and successful market 

penetration will require considerable promotional effort. The license contains an exclusive 

dealing restriction preventing BigCo from selling products that compete with the product 

embodying the licensed technology.

Discussion: This example illustrates both types of exclusivity in a licensing arrangement. The 

license is exclusive in that it limits the ability of the licensor to grant other licenses. In addition, 

the license has an exclusive dealing component in that it restricts the licensee from selling 

competing products.

The inventor of the display technology and its licensee are in a vertical relationship and are not 

actual or potential competitors in the manufacture or sale of display products or in the sale or 

development of technology. Hence, the grant of an exclusive license does not affect competition 

between the licensor and the licensee. The exclusive license may promote competition in the 

manufacturing and sale of display products by encouraging BigCo to develop and promote the 
23

new product in the face of uncertain demand by rewarding BigCo for its efforts if they lead to 

large sales. Although the license bars the licensee from selling competing products, this 

exclusive dealing aspect is unlikely in this example to harm competition by anticompetitively 

foreclosing access, raising competitors’ costs of inputs, or facilitating anticompetitive pricing 

because the relevant product market is unconcentrated, the exclusive dealing restraint affects 

only a small proportion of the outlets for distribution of display products, and entry is easy. On 

these facts, the evaluating Agency would be unlikely to challenge the arrangement.

4.2 Efficiencies and Justifications

If the Agencies conclude, upon an evaluation of the market factors described in section 4.1, that 

a restraint in a licensing arrangement is unlikely to have an anticompetitive effect, they will not 

challenge the restraint. If the Agencies conclude that the restraint has, or is likely to have, an 

anticompetitive effect, they will consider whether the restraint is reasonably necessary to 

achieve procompetitive efficiencies. If the restraint is reasonably necessary, the Agencies will 

balance the procompetitive efficiencies and the anticompetitive effects to determine the 

probable net effect on competition in each relevant market.

The Agencies’ comparison of anticompetitive harms and procompetitive efficiencies is 

necessarily a qualitative one. The risk of anticompetitive effects in a particular case may be 

insignificant compared to the expected efficiencies, or vice versa. As the expected 

anticompetitive effects in a particular licensing arrangement increase, the Agencies will require 

evidence establishing a greater level of expected efficiencies. 

The existence of practical and significantly less restrictive alternatives is relevant to a 

determination of whether a restraint is reasonably necessary. If it is clear that the parties could 

have achieved similar efficiencies by means that are significantly less restrictive, then the 

Agencies will not give weight to the parties’ efficiency claim. In making this assessment, 

however, the Agencies will not engage in a search for a theoretically least restrictive alternative 

that is not realistic in the practical prospective business situation faced by the parties.

When a restraint has, or is likely to have, an anticompetitive effect, the duration of that restraint 

can be an important factor in determining whether it is reasonably necessary to achieve the 

putative procompetitive efficiency. The effective duration of a restraint may depend on a 

number of factors, including the option of the affected party to terminate the arrangement 
24

unilaterally and the presence of contract terms (e.g., unpaid balances on minimum purchase 

commitments) that encourage the licensee to renew a license arrangement. Consistent with 

their approach to less restrictive alternative analysis generally, the Agencies will not attempt to 

draw fine distinctions regarding duration; rather, their focus will be on situations in which the 

duration clearly exceeds the period needed to achieve the procompetitive efficiency.

The evaluation of procompetitive efficiencies, of the reasonable necessity of a restraint to 

achieve them, and of the duration of the restraint, may depend on the market context. A 

restraint that may be justified by the needs of a new entrant, for example, may not have a 

procompetitive efficiency justification in different market circumstances.57

4.3 Antitrust “Safety Zone”

Because licensing arrangements often promote innovation and enhance competition, the 

Agencies believe that an antitrust “safety zone” is useful in order to provide some degree of 

certainty and thus to encourage such activity.58 Absent extraordinary circumstances, the 

Agencies will not challenge a restraint in an intellectual property licensing arrangement if (1) the 

restraint is not facially anticompetitive59 and (2) the licensor and its licensees collectively 

account for no more than twenty percent of each relevant market significantly affected by the 

restraint. This “safety zone” does not apply to those transfers of intellectual property rights to 

which a merger analysis is applied.60

Whether a restraint falls within the safety zone will be determined by reference only to goods 

markets unless the analysis of goods markets alone would inadequately address the effects of 

the licensing arrangement on competition among technologies or in research and development.

If an examination of the effects on competition among technologies or in research and

development is required, and if market share data are unavailable or do not accurately 

represent competitive significance, the following safety zone criteria will apply. Absent 

extraordinary circumstances, the Agencies will not challenge a restraint in an intellectual 

property licensing arrangement that may affect competition in a technology market if (1) the 

 57 Cf. United States v. Jerrold Elecs. Corp., 187 F. Supp. 545 (E.D. Pa. 1960), aff’d per curiam, 365 U.S. 567 (1961). 58 The antitrust “safety zone” does not apply to restraints that are not in a licensing arrangement, or to restraints 

that are in a licensing arrangement but are unrelated to the use of the licensed intellectual property. 59 “Facially anticompetitive” refers to restraints that normally warrant per se treatment, as well as other restraints 

of a kind that would always or almost always tend to reduce output or increase prices. See section 3.4. 60 See section 5.7.
25

restraint is not facially anticompetitive and (2) there are four or more independently controlled 

technologies in addition to the technologies controlled by the parties to the licensing 

arrangement that may be substitutable for the licensed technology at a comparable cost to the 

user. Regarding potential effects in a research and development market, the Agencies, absent 

extraordinary circumstances, will not challenge a restraint in an intellectual property licensing 

arrangement if (1) the restraint is not facially anticompetitive and (2) four or more 

independently controlled entities in addition to the parties to the licensing arrangement possess 

the required specialized assets or characteristics and the incentive to engage in research and 

development that is a close substitute of the research and development activities of the parties 

to the licensing agreement.61 In evaluating close substitutes, the Agencies may consider 

numerous factors including the following: the nature, scope and magnitude of the R&D efforts 

of the other independently controlled entities; their access to financial support, intellectual 

property, skilled personnel or other specialized assets; their timing; and their ability, either 

acting alone or through others, to successfully commercialize innovations. 

The Agencies emphasize that licensing arrangements are not anticompetitive merely because 

they do not fall within the scope of the safety zone. Indeed, it is likely that the great majority of 

licenses falling outside the safety zone are lawful and procompetitive. The safety zone is 

designed to provide owners of intellectual property with a degree of certainty in those 

situations in which anticompetitive effects are so unlikely that the arrangements may be 

presumed not to be anticompetitive without an inquiry into particular industry circumstances. It 

is not intended to suggest that parties should conform to the safety zone or to discourage 

parties falling outside the safety zone from adopting restrictions in their license arrangements 

that are reasonably necessary to achieve an efficiency-enhancing integration of economic 

activity. The Agencies will analyze arrangements falling outside the safety zone based on the 

considerations outlined in parts 3-5.

The status of a licensing arrangement with respect to the safety zone may change over time. A 

determination by the Agencies that a restraint in a licensing arrangement qualifies for inclusion 

 61 This is consistent with congressional intent in enacting the National Cooperative Research Act. See H.R. REP.

NO. 98-1044, at 10 (1984) (Conf. Rep.), reprinted in 1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3131, 3134-35.
26

in the safety zone is based on the factual circumstances prevailing at the time of the conduct at 

issue.62

5 Application of General Principles

5.0 This section illustrates the application of the general principles discussed above to particular 

licensing restraints and to arrangements that involve the cross-licensing, pooling, or acquisition 

of intellectual property. The restraints and arrangements identified are typical of those that are 

likely to receive antitrust scrutiny; however, they are not intended as an exhaustive list of 

practices that could raise competition concerns.

5.1 Horizontal Restraints

The existence of a restraint in a licensing arrangement that affects parties in a horizontal 

relationship (a “horizontal restraint”) does not necessarily cause the arrangement to be 

anticompetitive. As in the case of joint ventures among horizontal competitors, licensing 

arrangements among such competitors may promote rather than hinder competition if they 

result in integrative efficiencies. Such efficiencies may arise, for example, from the realization of 

economies of scale and the integration of complementary research and development, 

production, and marketing capabilities.

Following the general principles outlined in section 3.4, the Agencies will often evaluate 

horizontal restraints under the rule of reason. Additionally, some restraints may merit per se 

treatment, including price-fixing, allocation of markets or customers, agreements to reduce 

output, and certain group boycotts. 

Example 8

Situation: Two of the leading manufacturers of a consumer electronic product hold patents that 

cover alternative circuit designs for the product. The manufacturers assign their patents to a 

separate corporation wholly owned by the two firms. That corporation licenses the right to use 

the circuit designs to other consumer product manufacturers and establishes the license 

royalties. None of the patents is blocking; that is, each of the patents can be used without 

infringing a patent owned by the other firm. The different circuit designs are substitutable in 

 62 The conduct at issue may be the transaction giving rise to the restraint or the subsequent implementation of the 

restraint.
27

that each permits the manufacture at comparable cost to consumers of products that 

consumers consider to be interchangeable. 

Discussion: In this example, the manufacturers are horizontal competitors in the goods market 

for the consumer product and in the related technology markets. The competitive issue with 

regard to a joint assignment of patent rights is whether the assignment has an adverse impact 

on competition in technology and goods markets that is not outweighed by procompetitive 

efficiencies, such as benefits in the use or dissemination of the technology. Each of the patent 

owners has a right to exclude others from using its patent. That right does not extend, however, 

to the agreement to assign rights jointly. To the extent that the patent rights cover technologies 

that are close substitutes, the joint determination of royalties likely would result in higher 

royalties and higher goods prices than would result if the owners licensed or used their 

technologies independently. In the absence of evidence establishing efficiency-enhancing 

integration from the joint assignment of patent rights, the Agency may conclude that the joint 

marketing of competing patent rights constitutes horizontal price-fixing and could be challenged 

as a per se unlawful horizontal restraint of trade. If the joint marketing arrangement results in 

an efficiency-enhancing integration, the Agency would evaluate the arrangement under the rule 

of reason. However, the Agency may conclude that the anticompetitive effects are sufficiently 

apparent, and the claimed integrative efficiencies are sufficiently weak or not reasonably related 

to the restraints to warrant challenge of the arrangement without an elaborate analysis of 

particular industry circumstances.

63

5.2 Price Maintenance

Minimum Resale Price Maintenance (RPM) typically refers to a vertical pricing arrangement in 

which a manufacturer requires its resellers to agree to sell the manufacturer’s products at or 

above a specified minimum price. An analogous arrangement can occur in the intellectual 

property context when a licensor conditions a license on the resale price of the product 

incorporating the licensed technology. 

As with RPM agreements that apply to outright sales of goods, the Agencies will apply a rule of 

reason analysis to price maintenance in intellectual property licensing agreements.64 The 

 63 See section 3.4. 64 In Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., 551 U.S. 877 (2007), the Supreme Court overruled its 

nearly century-old opinion in Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. John D. Park & Sons Co., 220 U.S. 373 (1911), which held RPM 
28

Agencies will analyze vertical price restrictions in licensing agreements on a case-by-case basis,

evaluating the competitive benefits and harms from such agreements.65 Agreements 

constituting a horizontal cartel will be considered per se illegal.66

5.3 Tying Arrangements

A “tying,” “tie-in,” or “tied sale” arrangement has been defined as “an agreement by a party to 

sell one product . . . on the condition that the buyer also purchases a different (or tied) product, 

or at least agrees that he will not purchase that [tied] product from any other supplier.”67

Conditioning the ability of a licensee to license one or more items of intellectual property on the 

licensee’s purchase of another item of intellectual property or a good or a service has been held 

in some cases to constitute illegal tying.68 Although tying arrangements may result in 

anticompetitive effects, such arrangements can also result in significant efficiencies and 

procompetitive benefits. In the exercise of their prosecutorial discretion, the Agencies will 

consider both the anticompetitive effects and the efficiencies attributable to a tie-in. The 

Agencies would be likely to challenge a tying arrangement if: (1) the seller has market power in 

the tying product,69 (2) the arrangement has an adverse effect on competition in the relevant 

market for the tying product or the tied product, and (3) efficiency justifications for the 

 

agreements per se illegal. The Leegin court concluded that such agreements should be evaluated under the rule of 

reason. See also United States v. Gen. Elec. Co., 272 U.S. 476, 479, 490 (1926) (holding that an owner of a product 

patent may condition a license to manufacture the product on the fixing of the first sale price of the patented 

product that it also manufactures); LucasArts Entm’t Co. v. Humongous Entm’t Co., 870 F. Supp. 285, 287-89 (N.D. 

Cal. 1993) (conditioning license to copyrighted software on price of product incorporating the software did not 

violate Sherman Act). In a case that preceded Leegin, State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U.S. 3 (1997), the Court ruled that 

maximum resale price maintenance should be evaluated under the rule of reason. 65 Although most states follow federal law in interpreting analogous state antitrust states, some states continue to 

prohibit minimum resale price maintenance. See, e.g., Darush v. Revision LP, No. CV 12-10296 GAF (AGRx), 

2013 WL 1749539, at *6 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 10, 2013) (vertical RPM per se illegal under California’s Cartwright Act); MD.

CODE ANN., COM. LAW § 11-204(b) (West 2016) (“[A] contract, combination, or conspiracy that establishes a 

minimum price below which a retailer, wholesaler, or distributor may not sell a commodity or service is an 

unreasonable restraint of trade or commerce.”). 

66 See United States v. Apple, Inc., 791 F.3d 290, 324-25 (2d Cir. 2015) (explaining that “where the vertical 

organizer has not only committed to vertical agreements, but has also agreed to participate in the horizontal 

[price-fixing] conspiracy” among competitors, courts need not consider “whether the vertical agreements 

restrained trade because all participants agreed to the horizontal restraint, which is ‘and ought to be, per se

unlawful.’” (quoting Leegin, 551 U.S. at 893)). 67 Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Tech. Servs., Inc., 504 U.S. 451, 462 (1992) (internal quotation marks omitted). 68 See, e.g., United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U.S. 131, 156-58 (1948) (copyrights); Int’l Salt Co. v. 

United States, 332 U.S. 392 (1947) (patent and related product), abrogated in part by Ill. Tool Works, Inc. v. Indep. 

Ink, Inc., 547 U.S. 28 (2006).

69 Cf. 35 U.S.C. § 271(d) (2012) (requiring market power in patent misuse cases involving tying).
29

arrangement do not outweigh the anticompetitive effects.70 The Agencies will not presume that 

a patent, copyright, or trade secret necessarily confers market power upon its owner.71

Package licensing—the licensing of multiple items of intellectual property in a single license or in 

a group of related licenses—may be a form of tying arrangement if the licensing of one

intellectual property right is conditioned upon the acceptance of a license of another, separate 

intellectual property right. Package licensing can be efficiency enhancing under some 

circumstances. When multiple licenses are needed to use any single item of intellectual property, 

for example, a package license may promote such efficiencies. If a package license constitutes a 

tying arrangement, the Agencies will evaluate its competitive effects under the same principles 

they apply to other tying arrangements.

5.4 Exclusive Dealing

In the intellectual property context, exclusive dealing occurs when a license prevents the 

licensee from licensing, selling, distributing, or using competing technologies. Exclusive dealing 

arrangements are evaluated under the rule of reason.72 In determining whether an exclusive 

dealing arrangement is likely to reduce competition in a relevant market, the Agencies will take 

into account the extent to which the arrangement (1) promotes the exploitation and 

development of the licensor’s technology and (2) anticompetitively forecloses the exploitation 

and development of, or otherwise constrains competition among, competing technologies.

The likelihood that exclusive dealing may have anticompetitive effects is related, inter alia, to 

the degree of foreclosure in the relevant market, the duration of the exclusive dealing 

arrangement, and other characteristics of the input and output markets, such as concentration, 

difficulty of entry, and the responsiveness of supply and demand to changes in price in the 

relevant markets.73 If the Agencies determine that a particular exclusive dealing arrangement 

may have an anticompetitive effect, they will evaluate the extent to which the restraint 

 70 See, e.g., United States v. Microsoft Corp., 253 F.3d 34, 95-96 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (en banc) (per curiam) (rejecting 

the application of a per se rule to “platform software”). As is true throughout these Guidelines, the factors listed 

are those that guide the Agencies’ internal analysis in exercising their prosecutorial discretion. They are not 

intended to circumscribe how the Agencies will conduct the litigation of cases that they decide to bring.

71 See Ill. Tool Works, 547 U.S. 28. 72 See Tampa Elec. Co. v. Nashville Coal Co., 365 U.S. 320 (1961) (evaluating legality of exclusive dealing under 

sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act and section 3 of the Clayton Act); Beltone Elecs. Corp., 100 F.T.C. 68 (1982) 

(evaluating legality of exclusive dealing under section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act).

73 See sections 4.1.1 and 4.1.2.
30

encourages licensees to develop and market the licensed technology (or specialized applications 

of that technology), increases licensors’ incentives to develop or refine the licensed technology, 

or otherwise increases competition and enhances output in a relevant market.74

5.5 Cross-Licensing and Pooling Arrangements

Cross-licensing and pooling arrangements are agreements of two or more owners of different 

items of intellectual property to license one another or third parties. These arrangements may 

provide procompetitive benefits by integrating complementary technologies, reducing 

transaction costs, clearing blocking positions, and avoiding costly infringement litigation. By 

promoting the dissemination of technology, cross-licensing and pooling arrangements are often 

procompetitive.

Cross-licensing and pooling arrangements can have anticompetitive effects in certain 

circumstances. For example, collective price or output restraints in pooling arrangements, such 

as the joint marketing of pooled intellectual property rights with collective price setting or 

coordinated output restrictions, may be deemed unlawful if they do not contribute to an 

efficiency-enhancing integration of economic activity among the participants.75 When crosslicensing or pooling arrangements are mechanisms to accomplish naked price-fixing or market 

division, they are subject to challenge under the per se rule.76

Settlements involving the cross-licensing of intellectual property rights can be an efficient means 

to avoid litigation and, in general, courts favor such settlements. When such cross-licensing 

involves horizontal competitors, however, the Agencies will consider whether the effect of the 

settlement is to diminish competition among entities that would have been actual or potential 

competitors in a relevant market in the absence of the cross-license. In the absence of offsetting 

efficiencies, such settlements may be challenged as unlawful restraints of trade.77

 74 See section 4.2; Example 7. 75 Compare NCAA v. Bd. of Regents of the Univ. of Okla., 468 U.S. 85, 114-20 (1984) (holding unlawful output 

restriction on college football broadcasting because it was not reasonably related to any purported justification), 

with Broad. Music, Inc. v. Columbia Broad. Sys., Inc., 441 U.S. 1, 23-24 (1979) (finding blanket license for music 

copyrights not per se illegal because the cooperative price was necessary to the creation of a new product).

76 See United States v. New Wrinkle, Inc., 342 U.S. 371 (1952) (price-fixing through pooling). 77 Cf. United States v. Singer Mfg. Co., 374 U.S. 174 (1963) (finding antitrust conspiracy where cross-license 

agreement was part of broader combination to exclude competitors).
31

Pooling arrangements generally need not be open to all who would like to join. However, 

exclusion from cross-licensing and pooling arrangements among parties that collectively possess 

market power may, under some circumstances, harm competition.78 In general, exclusion from a 

pooling or cross-licensing arrangement among competing technologies is unlikely to have 

anticompetitive effects unless (1) excluded firms cannot effectively compete in the relevant 

market for the good incorporating the licensed technologies and (2) the pool participants 

collectively possess market power in the relevant market. If these circumstances exist, the 

Agencies will evaluate whether the arrangement’s limitations on participation are reasonably 

related to the efficient development and exploitation of the pooled technologies and will assess 

the net effect of those limitations in the relevant market.79

Another possible anticompetitive effect of pooling arrangements may occur if the arrangement 

deters or discourages participants from engaging in research and development, thus retarding 

innovation. For example, a pooling arrangement that requires members to grant licenses to 

each other for current and future technology at minimal cost may reduce the incentives of its 

members to engage in research and development because members of the pool have to share 

their successful research and development and each of the members can free ride on the 

accomplishments of other pool members.80 However, such an arrangement can have 

procompetitive benefits, for example, by exploiting economies of scale and integrating 

complementary capabilities of the pool members, (including the clearing of blocking positions), 

and is likely to cause competitive problems only when the arrangement includes a large fraction 

of the potential research and development in a research and development market.81 

 78 Cf. Nw. Wholesale Stationers, Inc. v. Pac. Stationery & Printing Co., 472 U.S. 284 (1985) (holding that exclusion of 

a competitor from a purchasing cooperative not per se unlawful absent a showing of market power).

79 See section 4.2. 80 See generally United States v. Mfrs. Aircraft Ass’n, 1976-1 Trade Cas. (CCH) ¶ 60,810 (S.D.N.Y. 1975); United 

States v. Auto. Mfrs. Ass’n, 307 F. Supp. 617 (C.D. Cal. 1969), appeal dismissed sub nom. City of New York v. United 

States, 397 U.S. 248 (1970), modified sub nom. United States v. Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n, 1982-83 Trade Cas. (CCH) 

¶ 65,088 (C.D. Cal. 1982). 

81 See section 3.2.3 and Example 3. See also 2007 ANTITRUST-IP REPORT, supra note 13, at 62-63; Summit Tech., Inc., 

127 F.T.C. 208, 209-10 (1999) (FTC challenge to patent pool that included competing technologies from only two 

firms with FDA approval for a certain form of laser eye surgery and established a set licensing fee for use of either 

pool member’s equipment). DOJ has reviewed favorably several patent pools with safeguards in place to mitigate 

potential anticompetitive harms. See generally Letter from Thomas O. Barnett, Assistant Att’y Gen., Antitrust Div., 

U.S. Dep’t of Justice, to William F. Dolan, Partner, Jones Day (Oct. 21, 2008), 

https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/atr/legacy/2008/10/21/238429.pdf; Letter from Joel I. Klein, Assistant 

Att’y Gen., Antitrust Div., U.S. Dep’t of Justice, to Carey R. Ramos, Partner, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & 
32

Example 9

Situation: As in Example 8, two of the leading manufacturers of a consumer electronic product 

hold patents that cover alternative circuit designs for the product. The manufacturers assign 

several of their patents to a separate corporation wholly owned by the two firms. That 

corporation licenses the right to use the circuit designs to other consumer product

manufacturers and establishes the license royalties. In this example, however, the 

manufacturers assign to the separate corporation only patents that are blocking. None of the 

patents assigned to the corporation can be used without infringing a patent owned by the other 

firm.

Discussion: Unlike the previous example, the joint assignment of patent rights to the wholly 

owned corporation in this example does not adversely affect competition in the licensed 

technology among entities that would have been actual or potential competitors in the absence 

of the licensing arrangement. Moreover, the licensing arrangement is likely to have 

procompetitive benefits in the use of the technology. Because the manufacturers’ patents are 

blocking, the manufacturers are not in a horizontal relationship with respect to those patents. 

None of the patents can be used without the right to a patent owned by the other firm, so the 

patents are not substitutable. As in Example 8, the firms are horizontal competitors in the 

relevant goods market. In the absence of collateral restraints that would likely raise price or 

reduce output in the relevant goods market or in any other relevant antitrust market and that 

are not reasonably related to an efficiency-enhancing integration of economic activity, the 

evaluating Agency would be unlikely to challenge this arrangement.

 

Garrison (June 10, 1999), http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/busreview/2485.pdf [hereinafter 6C DVD Business 

Review Letter]; Letter from Joel I. Klein, Assistant Att’y Gen., Antitrust Div., U.S. Dep’t of Justice, to Garrard R. 

Beeney, Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell (Dec. 16, 1998), 

https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/atr/legacy/2006/04/27/2121.pdf [hereinafter 3C DVD Business Review 

Letter]; Letter from Joel I. Klein, Assistant Att’y Gen., Antitrust Div., U.S. Dep’t of Justice, to Garrard R. Beeney, 

Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell (June 26, 1997), http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/busreview/215742.pdf

[hereinafter MPEG-2 Business Review Letter]; see also Letter from Charles A. James, Assistant Att’y Gen., Antitrust 

Div., U.S. Dep’t of Justice, to Ky P. Ewing, Partner, Vinson & Elkins L.L.P. (Nov. 12, 2002), 

https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/atr/legacy/2006/04/27/200455.pdf. The absence of the safeguards 

used in these pools will not necessarily make the pool anticompetitive; the Agencies will review the particular facts 

to determine whether the actual conduct has an anticompetitive effect. 
33

5.6 Grantbacks

A grantback is an arrangement under which a licensee agrees to extend to the licensor of 

intellectual property the right to use the licensee’s improvements to the licensed technology. 

Grantbacks can have procompetitive effects, especially if they are nonexclusive. Such 

arrangements provide a means for the licensee and the licensor to share risks and reward the 

licensor for making possible further innovation based on or informed by the licensed technology, 

and both of these benefits promote innovation in the first place and promote the subsequent 

licensing of the results of the innovation. Grantbacks may adversely affect competition, however, 

if they substantially reduce the licensee’s incentives to engage in research and development and 

thereby limit rivalry.

A non-exclusive grantback allows the licensee to practice its technology and license it to others. 

Such a grantback provision may be necessary to ensure that the licensor is not prevented from 

effectively competing because it is denied access to improvements developed with the aid of its 

own technology. Compared with an exclusive grantback, a non-exclusive grantback, which 

leaves the licensee free to license improvements technology to others, is less likely to harm 

competition.82

The Agencies will evaluate a grantback provision under the rule of reason, considering its likely 

effects in light of the overall structure of the licensing arrangement and conditions in the 

relevant markets.83 An important factor in the Agencies’ analysis of a grantback will be whether 

the licensor has market power in a relevant technology or research and development market. If 

the Agencies determine that a particular grantback provision is likely to reduce significantly 

licensees’ incentives to invest in improving the licensed technology, the Agencies will consider 

the extent to which the grantback provision has offsetting procompetitive effects, such as 

(1) promoting dissemination of licensees’ improvements to the licensed technology, 

(2) increasing the licensors’ incentives to disseminate the licensed technology, or (3) otherwise 

increasing competition and output in a relevant technology or research and development 

 82 A number of the pooling arrangements that the Department of Justice has reviewed contained mechanisms to 

narrow the scope of grantbacks, making them more likely to be procompetitive. See e.g., 6C DVD Business Review 

Letter, supra note 81, at 8-9, 14-16; 3C DVD Business Review Letter, supra note 81, at 8, 14; MPEG-2 Business 

Review Letter, supra note 81, at 13. 83 See generally Transparent-Wrap Mach. Corp. v. Stokes & Smith Co., 329 U.S. 637, 645-48 (1947) (holding that

grantback provision in technology license is not per se unlawful).
34

market.84 In addition, the Agencies will consider the extent to which grantback provisions in the 

relevant markets generally increase licensors’ incentives to innovate in the first place.

5.7 Acquisition of Intellectual Property Rights 

Certain transfers of intellectual property rights are most appropriately analyzed by applying the 

principles and standards used to analyze mergers, particularly those in the 2010 Horizontal 

Merger Guidelines. The Agencies will apply a merger analysis to an outright sale by an 

intellectual property owner of all of its rights to that intellectual property and to a transaction in 

which a person obtains through grant, sale, or other transfer an exclusive license for intellectual 

property (i.e., a license that precludes all other persons, including the licensor, from using the 

licensed intellectual property).85 Such transactions may be assessed under section 7 of the 

Clayton Act, sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, and section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission 

Act. 86

Example 10

Situation: Omega develops a new, patented pharmaceutical for the treatment of a particular 

disease. The only drug on the market approved for the treatment of this disease is sold by Delta. 

Omega’s patented drug has almost completed regulatory approval by the Food and Drug 

Administration. Omega has invested considerable sums in product development and market 

testing, and initial results show that Omega’s drug would be a significant competitor to Delta’s. 

However, rather than enter the market as a direct competitor of Delta, Omega licenses to Delta 

the right to manufacture and sell Omega’s patented drug. The license agreement with Delta is 

nominally nonexclusive. However, Omega has rejected all requests by other firms to obtain a 

license to manufacture and sell Omega’s patented drug, despite offers by those firms of terms 

that are reasonable in relation to those in Delta’s license.

Discussion: Although Omega’s license to Delta is nominally nonexclusive, the circumstances 

indicate that it is exclusive in fact because Omega has rejected all reasonable offers by other 

 84 See section 4.2. 85 The Agencies may also apply a merger analysis to a transaction involving a license that does not fall within the 

traditional definition of an exclusive license but in substance transfers intellectual property rights and raises the 

same potential antitrust concern—i.e., the transaction’s effect may be to substantially lessen competition in a 

relevant market. See, e.g., Example 10. 86 The safety zone of section 4.3 does not apply to transfers of intellectual property such as those described in this 

section.
35

firms for licenses to manufacture and sell Omega’s patented drug. The facts of this example 

indicate that Omega, or Omega’s licensee, would be a potential competitor of Delta in the 

absence of the licensing arrangement, and thus the firms are in a horizontal relationship in the 

relevant goods market that includes drugs for the treatment of this particular disease. The 

evaluating Agency would apply a merger analysis to this transaction, since it involves an 

acquisition of a potential competitor.

6 Invalid or Unenforceable Intellectual Property Rights

The Agencies may challenge the enforcement of invalid intellectual property rights as antitrust 

violations. Enforcement or attempted enforcement of a patent obtained by fraud on the Patent 

and Trademark Office may violate section 2 of the Sherman Act or section 5 of the Federal Trade 

Commission Act, if all the elements otherwise necessary to establish a charge are proved.87

Inequitable conduct before the Patent and Trademark Office will not be the basis of a section 2 

claim unless the conduct also involves knowing and willful fraud and the other elements of a 

section 2 claim are present.88 Actual or attempted enforcement of patents obtained by 

inequitable conduct that falls short of fraud under some circumstances may violate section 5 of 

 87 Walker Process Equip., Inc. v. Food Mach. & Chem. Corp., 382 U.S. 172, 176-77 (1965); Am. Cyanamid Co., 

72 F.T.C. 623, 684-85 (1967), aff’d sub. nom. Charles Pfizer & Co. v. FTC, 401 F.2d 574 (6th Cir. 1968); see also 

Michael Anthony Jewelers, Inc. v. Peacock Jewelry, Inc., 795 F. Supp. 639, 647 (S.D.N.Y. 1992) (holding that the 

enforcement of copyrights obtained by fraud on the Copyright Office could similarly violate antitrust law). 88 Argus Chem. Corp. v. Fibre Glass-Evercoat, Inc., 812 F.2d 1381, 1384-85 (Fed. Cir. 1987); see also Transweb, LLC v. 

3M Innovative Props. Co., 812 F.3d 1295, 1307 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (stating that “[a]fter Therasense, the showing 

required for proving inequitable conduct and the showing required for proving the fraud component of Walker 

Process liability may be nearly identical”); Therasense, Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson & Co., 649 F.3d 1276, 1290-92 (Fed. 

Cir. 2011) (en banc) (raising the standard of proof for inequitable conduct to require “but for” materiality and 

specific intent to deceive except in cases of affirmative egregious conduct). 
36

the Federal Trade Commission Act.

89 In addition, sham litigation to enforce intellectual property 

rights may also constitute an element of a violation of the Sherman Act.90

 89 See Am. Cyanamid Co., 72 F.T.C. at 684. 90 See Prof’l Real Estate Inv’rs, Inc. v. Columbia Pictures Indus., Inc., 508 U.S. 49, 60-63 (1993) (“First, the lawsuit 

must be objectively baseless in the sense that no reasonable litigant could realistically expect success on the 

merits . . . . Only if challenged litigation is objectively meritless may a court examine the litigant’s subjective 

motivation. Under this second part of our definition of sham, the court should focus on whether the baseless 

lawsuit conceals ‘an attempt to interfere directly with the business relationships of a competitor’. . . .” (quoting E. 

R.R. Presidents Conference v. Noerr Motor Freight, Inc., 365 U.S. 127, 144 (1961))); see also id. at 58 (recognizing 

that “‘a pattern of baseless, repetitive claims’” may result in an antitrust violation (quoting Cal. Motor Transp. Co. v. 

Trucking Unlimited, 404 U.S. 508, 513 (1972))); Handgards, Inc. v. Ethicon, Inc., 743 F.2d 1282, 1289 (9th Cir. 1984) 

(patents); Handgards, Inc. v. Ethicon, Inc., 601 F.2d 986, 992-96 (9th Cir. 1979) (patents); CVD, Inc. v. Raytheon Co., 

769 F.2d 842, 850-51 (1st Cir. 1985) (trade secrets). The enforcement of invalid intellectual property rights 

discussed in this section is distinguishable from licensing agreements where royalties are to be paid after the term 

of a valid patent right expires. The latter agreements may have “demonstrable efficiencies” that can be taken into 

account in an effects-based analysis. 2007 ANTITRUST-IP REPORT, supra note 13, at 122; see also Kimble v. Marvel 

Entm’t, LLC, 135 S. Ct. 2401, 2408 (2015) (explaining that patent law bars “royalties for using an invention after it 

has moved into the public domain” but distinguishing “defer[red] payments for pre-expiration use of a patent into 

the post-expiration period”).