Three months after tire maker Continental gave up on its meritless federal lawsuit against Avanci and some of its licensors, particularly Nokia, its Delaware case under state contract law largely survived Nokia's motion to dismiss. I've had the chance to read the decision and would like to share only a few high-level observations here. Conti was lucky that the case got reassigned to the Delaware Chancery Court's Vice Chancellor (= judge) Nathan A. Cook. According to his bio on the court's website, Mr. Cook's entire professional life has revolved around that particular state court. He clerked f ..read more

We're now witnessing the first legal--albeit only procedural--dispute between Sony and Microsoft in connection with the latter's acquisition of Activision Blizzard King (NASDAQ:ATVI). After bringing three motions for an extension of time (related to a potential Sony motion to quash or limit Microsoft's subpoena) that Microsoft was fine with, Sony has now filed a fourth such motion (PDF), and Microsoft officially opposes it, which requires the Federal Trade Commission's Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) D. Michael Chappell to side with one party or the other. Sony also has a problem with the FTC's ..read more

Now that the public redacted version (PDF) of Judge Edward J. Davila's order denying the Federal Trade Commission's motion for a preliminary injunction against Meta's acquisition of virtual reality (VR) software and content maker Within has been released, it's easy to tell what bearing has--and does not have--on the FTC's politically motivated efforts to torpedo Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard. The issues are not merely distinguishable, but downright disparate: The first step in antitrust is always market definition. About half of Judge Davila's order is dedicated to that questio ..read more

This is a follow-up to a January 30, 2023 post, Indian startup association calls out 'Google's strategy to disincentivize ... alternative payment solutions' by making alternatives even more expensive on the bottom line. The Alliance for Digital India Foundation (ADIF), which unlike Google's "Developers Alliance" and Apple's ACT represents real app developers, has meanwhile "d[u]g deeper" and laid out with greater specificity what's wrong with the changes to its Android terms and practices that Google announced in its January 25, 2023 post, Updates to Android and Google Play in India. If you ar ..read more

Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California just held a status conference with Microsoft's counsel and the lawyers behind the so-called gamers' lawsuit that is economically more of a lawyers' lawsuit over the $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard King (NASDAQ:ATVI). I followed the Zoom conference, and these are the key results: Microsoft offered--as it had previously announced in a court filing--to stipulate not to consummate the transaction before May 1, and Judge Corley entered an order on the basis of that stipu ..read more

Last month it became known that Brazil's competition authority--Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (CADE), which translates as Administrative Council for Economic Defense--launched an antitrust inquiry into Apple's App Store terms and practices further to complaints by Latin American e-commerce companies Mercado Livre (in Spanish: Mercado Libre) and Clique. Brazil is becoming an increasingly important jurisdiction for patent and competition cases. Yesterday Apple filed its answers (PDF) to certain questions raised by CADE in a January 12 letter. CADE's question 2(b) was about the ..read more

This is counterintuitive. One would think that Sony's PlayStation chief Jim Ryan has a Lina Khan poster above his bed because the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is doing him the favor of acting almost like a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment with respect to Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard King (NASDAQ:ATVI). At minimum, one would expect Sony to jump when the FTC asks for documents and testimony in connection with that merger case. Not so: On Wednesday, Sony filed a motion--which it says the FTC does not oppose--for an extension of time (PDF). Instead of m ..read more

"Remember, remember, the 5th 6th of November" (and the 12th of September): Judge James Donato of the United States District has formally approved a case schedule negotiated between Google and the Google Play Store antitrust plaintiffs (three dozen U.S. states, Epic Games, Match Group, and a consumer class action) and set the In Re Google Play Store Antitrust Litigation (case no. 3:22-cv-2746-JD, N.D. Cal.) jury trial in San Francisco for November 6, 2023. This means the trial will be interrupted by the Thanksgiving holiday (November 23), though it is unclear whether the trial will ..read more

Yesterday I reported that counsel for Nvidia entered an appearance in the FTC's in-house adjudicative proceeding, and the question was "whether those lawyers are going to try to support the FTC or whether the reason is just a discovery dispute." For now, there are no motions to intervene in accordance with 16 CFR § 3.14, but Nvidia's lawyers filed a motion on Monday that the PDF has made public now (PDF), seeking an extension until February 13 to move to limit or quash a subpoena served on Nvidia by Activision Blizzard on January 20. The motion says that Activision agrees to this extension of ..read more

Today the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released its Competition in the Mobile Application Ecosystem report (PDF) and issued a press release, NTIA calls for Changes to Boost Competition in Mobile App Markets. The report was ordered by President Joe Biden, who stressed the need "to bring more competition back to the tech sector" in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. The press release says that--as the report itself notes--"new legislation and additional antitrust enforcement actions are likely necessary to boost competition in the ap ..read more