Antitrust and Competition:
Intellectual Property

Orrick’s Antitrust and Competition Group is often called upon to guide clients through the challenging antitrust and competition issues that arise in obtaining, licensing and protecting intellectual property rights. We help owners of intellectual property rights realize the value of their innovation, while guiding them through the minefield of licensing practices that can create antitrust or competition problems, or provide the basis for a patent misuse defense in an infringement action.

Our antitrust and competition lawyers work with Orrick’s intellectual property lawyers in developing license agreements, including agreements to settle patent infringement litigation. We also provide advice to companies that participate in standard-setting organizations, and we have substantial experience litigating issues at the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property, including antitrust counterclaims asserted in response to patent infringement claims.

Antitrust/Competition and IP Counseling Services

• Royalty structures
• Licensing terms and restraints
• Cross-licenses
• Patent pools
• Standard setting
• Patent misuse

Representative Engagements: Antitrust/Competition and IP Litigation

• Nanya. Our lawyers represent Nanya in litigation alleging that Rambus manipulated the standard-setting process and violated the antitrust laws by seeking to collect royalties for its patented technologies.
• NVIDIA. Our lawyers represent NVIDIA in its patent and antitrust litigation against Rambus Inc. NVIDIA alleges that Rambus monopolized relevant technology markets through conduct related to the standard setting process and its licensing practices.
• Texas Instruments, Inc. Our lawyers defended Texas Instruments against antitrust counterclaims in a patent infringement suit, including allegations that Texas Instruments manipulated the standard-setting process, violated RAND obligations, and tied essential and non-essential patents.
• Foundry Networks. Our lawyers represented Foundry Networks in a case against Alcatel/Lucent for attempted monopolization based on an alleged failure to disclose relevant patents and patent applications while participating in industry-wide standard-setting activities through the IEEE.
• Princo. Our lawyers represent Princo Corporation in infringement cases relating to the CD-R and CD-RW patent pools, in which Princo has challenged the pools based on patent misuse.
• Affymetrix. Our lawyers represent Affymetrix, a gene chip producer, in connection with its lobbying activities on various gene patent issues.