Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim Signals Shift In Antitrust/IP Focus

Key Points

• Assistant Attorney General (AAG) Makan Delrahim, the new head of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ), recently announced a shift from the prior Administration's focus on the dangers of patent "hold-up" to the hazards of patent "hold-out."
• Delrahim also advocated for more rigorous antitrust review of standard setting organizations (SSOs) and said that alleged violations of commitments to license on "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory" (FRAND) terms should not be addressed under antitrust law.

In a recent  speech at the USC Gould School of Law, the DOJ's new antitrust chief, AAG Makan Delrahim, announced a shift from the prior administration's focus on the dangers of patent "hold-up" to the hazards of patent "hold-out" and the anticompetitive potential of standard-setting organizations (SSO). AAG Delrahim also indicated that standard-essential patent (SEP) holders' violations of commitments to license on FRAND terms