The Patent-Antitrust Interface: Are There Any No-No's Today?

Antitrust law and patent law are legal tectonic plates - always in motion, occasionally converging, occasionally diverging, and occasionally moving in parallel relation. As patent suits have recently multiplied, the antitrust enforcement policies have again responded - for example, imposing pro-competition rules on patent case settlements, on abuses in standard setting situations, and on practices used to obtain patents in the first instance. When the two disciplines' plates converge, we see the direct clash of the constitutional grant of a patent monopoly confronting the statutory edict against monopoly. When the plates diverge, we see that antitrust law has no bearing on many of the important patent doctrines of obviousness, anticipation, best mode, claims construction and the like. And when the doctrines transform - moving sideways in relation to each other - we see often compatible principles in...