IP meets Trustbusters

Cross posted:

The following article entitled: "Intellectual Property Meets Trustbusters: Two Monumental Antitrust Cases Against Microsoft and Intel Could Affect All Aspects of the Information Economy" was published in the Financial Post on July 4, 1998.

It can be found at:

   http://www.canoe.com/FPColumns/knopf.html.

I wrote this op-ed piece because very few commentators are looking at the link between the current Microsoft and Intel antitrust actions and intellectual property issues. Mr. Gates himself has made the issue linkage quite explicit. The U.S. Government, on the other hand, is being rather circumspect about this aspect and is not yet going for some of the conceivable intellectual property based remedies. It is important to attempt to understand both strategies.

I have also tried, in the short space allotted in the Financial Post, to relate these law suits and the forces behind them to the emerging database protection battles. Both struggles involve testing or extending the existing limits of intellectual property law and policy.

-- 
Howard P. Knopf
Counsel
Shapiro, Cohen
20th Floor
112 Kent St.
Ottawa, Canada, K1P 6P1
Phone: 613-232-5300
Fax: 613-563-9231
E-mail: hknopf[_at_]magmacom.com
        hknopf[_at_]idealaw.com