10/06/2004

How Antitrust Laws Affect IP

From Larta:

'Patent rights promote innovation and expression of new ideas and inventions for the public benefit. Patent rights give incentives to inventors to express their ideas by giving them assurance that these ideas will be protected so that others will not be able to profit from them. However, while patent protection provides economic incentives for inventors, this protection is not unlimited.

Antitrust laws impose important restrictions to ensure that inventors are not overstepping their boundaries by restricting competition. Some ways antitrust laws are able to promote competition are by strictly monitoring firms' actions by regulating potential mergers and preventing firms from forming monopolies."