The F.T.C. announced on November, 6, 2008 the first of a possible series of public hearings to explore the evolving market for Intellectual Property. The hearings will be held beginning on December, 5, 2008 in Washington D.C. and the Commission will examine changes in IP Law, patent-related business models and new learning about the operation of the IP marketplace since the issuance of the Commission report in October 2003.

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In this response to the request of Jones Day LLP on behalf of the RFID Consortium, the D.O.J. Antitrust Division explains its intentions on antitrust enforcement with regard to the Consortium’s proposed joint patent-licensing agreement. The D.O.J. considers that the pooling arrangement, which plans an allocation based on half of the royalties on the number of patents and the other half allocated substantially equally among participants, appears reasonably likely to yield efficiencies but includes safeguard to minimize the risk of anticompetitive effects.

On October 16, 2008, the FTC issued an order in Rambus, Inc., Docket No. 9302, authorizing Rambus to receive royalties in excess of maximum allowable rates. This order followed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for District of Columbia Circuit that set aside the Commission’s final order. For reminder, on February 5, 2007, the Commission issued a final order limiting maximum royalties that Rambus may demand from manufacturers of dynamic random access memory (DRAM).