How to Label: Antitrust

In the context of antitrust, agencies such as U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission don’t pay special attention to identifying different types of intellectual property. The principle of the antitrust law is to promote innovation and consumer welfare by prohibiting certain actions that may harm competition with respect to either existing or new ways of serving consumers.

However, in order to promote the understanding of intellectual property, U.S. Department of justice and the Federal Trade commission, it briefly discusses about patent, copyrights and trade secrets  In the Antitrust Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property.

Patent offers the owner the exclusive rights to exploit the economic benefits of the invention and exclude others from making, using, or selling it during the lifetime of the patent. Based on U.S. patent law, in order to gain patent protection, an invention (which may be a product, process, machine, or composition of matter) must be novel, nonobvious, and useful.

Copyright protects the original work of the author from unauthorized coping; however, a copyright protects only the expression, not the underlying ideas. Unlike a patent, which protects an invention not only from copying but also from independent creation, a copyright does not preclude others from independently creating similar expression. 

Trade secret protection is measured based upon efforts to maintain secrecy and has no fixed term. Similar to copyright, trade secret protection does not preclude independent creation by others.Trade secret protection applies to information whose economic benefits is not being generally known.

For more information about U.S. antitrust law, please visit http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/guidelines/0558.htm

For more information about EU competition law, please visit http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/index_en.htm