Re: [antitrust-policy] how does that affect those with no competitive interests?

[Stephen Farrell <[e-mail]>]

On 01/20/2012 10:14 PM, Jorge Contreras wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>
>>> and many
>>
>>> more would like to.  Also, universities can and are sued for antitrust
>>> violations, and there is no 'academic' immunity from these sorts of
>>> claims.
>>>
>>
>
>>
>> I've never heard of that. Got some examples that might be relevant
>> to the IETF? (Not of IPR or being sued in general, but specific to
>> anti-trust/competition law.)
>
>
>
> I don't have examples that involve standards IPR (but I haven't looked too
> hard yet).  I do know that universities have been sued for antitrust
> violations like colluding to fix tuition rates, etc.  I can dig up some of
> these cases if you're really interested.

I don't think that'd be relevant, so don't bother unless you
do. If there are no relevant examples then that's relevant I
guess.

>> ...
>>
>> My point is that this policy assumes that all participants can
>> in principle be anti-competition which seems like nonsense to
>> me.
>>
>
> Unless someone is participating in IETF purely out of personal interest or
> scientific curiosity, and neither he/she nor his/her employer has any
> financial interest, then antitrust violations can be committed.  I suspect
> this category of people is pretty small.

I think it'd help if we recognised that we're dealing with
extreme hypotheticals here, in terms of potential anti-trust
related actions for anyone not working for a large company.
I would be interested in any counter example involving an
SDO and something that's not a large company.

Hence this putative policy is practically distinguishing
between IETF participants on the basis of the type of their
current employer which is worrisome. (To me at least.)

S

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