What happened
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Dina Kallay used a Wednesday speech at the Hudson Institute Forum for Intellectual Property to frame the Justice Department Antitrust Division's current approach to disputes at the intersection of patents, standards and competition law.
Kallay said robust intellectual property protection promotes innovation and competition and that DOJ, with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, has been giving the policy area close attention. The remarks cast the division's recent litigation positions as part of a broader effort to keep patent enforcement, standards participation and antitrust analysis aligned.
A central message of the speech was that patents, including standard-essential patents, do not automatically create antitrust market power. Kallay pointed to DOJ's statement of interest in Disney v. InterDigital, saying the division told the Delaware court there is no presumption of market power merely because a patent is incorporated into a standard.
The speech also said patent holders are generally protected from antitrust liability when seeking judicial redress for alleged infringement. Kallay described a later DOJ statement in Samsung v. Netlist as reiterating that standard-essential patents require the same fact-specific market-power analysis as other patents and that a breach of standards-related contractual obligations is not, by itself, anticompetitive conduct.
Kallay also highlighted DOJ and USPTO's joint position in an International Trade Commission dispute involving Netlist and Samsung over DRAM devices, saying exclusion orders can protect American innovation and that public-interest factors should not become barriers to intellectual property enforcement.
In Collision v. Samsung, Kallay said DOJ and USPTO backed the possibility of injunctive relief for a nonpracticing patent holder after proof of infringement. She said the district court agreed with DOJ's position on irreparable harm and inadequate monetary remedies, although it ultimately denied Collision's injunction request on other eBay factors.
Kallay closed by tying domestic patent-remedy policy to global competition, citing U.S. concerns about foreign limits on patent enforcement and saying IP and antitrust enforcement enhance competition, innovation and trade domestically and globally.