Editing Injunction (section)

====Antitrust====

The DOJ and the FTC have investigated patent holders in the United States for seeking preliminary injunctions against accused infringers of [[standard-essential patents]], or patents that the patent holder must license on [[reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing|reasonable and non-discriminatory terms]].<ref>Press Release, U.S. Dep't of Justice, Statement of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division on Its Decision to Close Its Investigation of Samsung's Use of Its Standards-Essential Patents (7 Feb. 2014) [hereinafter DOJ Closes Its Samsung Investigation], available at http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/press_releases/2014/303547.pdf; Decision and Order § IV.D, Robert Bosch GmbH, No. C-4377 (F.T.C. 23 Apr. 2013). {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407140856/https://www.justice.gov/atr/public/press_releases/2014/303547.pdf|date=2014-04-07}}</ref> There is an ongoing debate among legal and economic scholars with major implications for antitrust policy in the United States as well as in other countries over the statutory limits to the patent holder's right to seek and obtain injunctive relief against infringers of standard-essential patents.<ref>J. Gregory Sidak, ''Injunctive Relief and the FRAND Commitment in the United States'' at 16, ''forthcoming in'' 1 Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law: Antitrust and Patents (Jorge L. Contreras ed., Cambridge Univ. Press 2017), https://www.criterioneconomics.com/injunctive-relief-and-the-frand-commitment-in-the-united-states.html.</ref> Citing concerns of the absence of competition facing the patent holder once its technology is locked-in to the [[technical standard|standard]], some scholars argue that the holder of a standard-essential patent should face antitrust liability when seeking an injunction against an implementer of a standard.<ref>Joseph Farrell, John Hayes, Carl Shapiro & Theresa Sullivan, Standard Setting, Patents, and Hold-Up, 74 ANTITRUST L.J. 603 (2007); Jorge L. Contreras, Fixing FRAND: A Pseudo-Pool Approach to Standards-Based Patent Licensing, 79 ANTITRUST L.J. 47 (2013).</ref> Other scholars assert that patent holders are not contractually restrained from pursuing injunctions for standard-essential patent claims and that patent law is already capable of determining whether an injunction against an infringer of standard-essential patents will impose a net cost on consumers, thus obviating the role of antitrust enforcement.<ref>J. Gregory Sidak, ''The Meaning of FRAND, Part II: Injunctions'', 11 J. COMP L. & ECON 201 (2015), https://www.criterioneconomics.com/meaning-of-frand-injunctions-for-standard-essential-patents.html.</ref>