Opinion ID: 3016862
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Limitation of Choice

Text: An additional anti-competitive effect is seen in the exclusionary practice here that limits the choices of products open to dental laboratories, the ultimate users. A dealer locked into the Dentsply line is unable to heed a request for a different manufacturers’ product and, from the standpoint of convenience, that inability to some extent impairs the laboratory’s choice in the marketplace. 2 In some cases which we find distinguishable, courts have indicated that exclusive dealing contracts of short duration are not violations of the antitrust laws. See, e.g., CDC Techs., Inc. v. IDEXX Labs., Inc., 186 F.3d 74, 81 (2d Cir. 1999) (“distributors” only provided sales leads and sales increased after competitor imposed exclusive dealing arrangements); Omega Envtl., Inc. v. Gilbarco, Inc., 127 F.3d 1157, 1163 (9th Cir. 1997) (manufacturer with 55% market share sold both to consumers and distributors, market showed decreasing prices and fluctuating shares); Ryko Mfg. Co. v. Eden Servs., 823 F.2d 1215 (8th Cir. 1987) (manufacturer sold its products through both direct sales and distributors); Roland Mach. Co. v. Dresser Indus., Inc., 749 F.2d 380 (7th Cir. 1984) (contract between dealer and manufacturer did not contain exclusive dealing provision). 26 As an example, current and potential customers requested Atlanta Dental to carry Vita teeth. Although these customers could have ordered the Vita teeth from Vident in California, Atlanta Dental’s tooth department manager believed that they were interested in a local source. Atlanta Dental chose not to add the Vita line after being advised that doing so would cut off access to Dentsply teeth, which constituted over 90% of its tooth sales revenue. Similarly, DLDS added Universal and Vita teeth to meet customers’ requests, but dropped them after Dentsply threatened to stop supplying its product. Marcus Dental began selling another brand of teeth at one point because of customer demand in response to supply problems with Dentsply. After Dentsply threatened to enforce Dealer Criterion 6, Marcus dropped the other line.