Section 2 and Standard Setting: Rambus, N-Data & The Role of Causation

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

FTC Commissioner Tom Rosch delivered a speech on Section 2 and Standard Setting: Rambus, N-Data & The Role of Causation recently.

SPEECH ABSTRACT: I had prepared some general remarks on the antitrust issues in standard setting and patent pools. But I will leave it to others to discuss the competitive benefits and risks of those practices. You are fortunate to have some great panelists here today and I know they plan on covering many of the issues outlined in my presentation. That gives me the liberty to focus on two Commission matters that have attracted a great deal of attention this year – Rambus and NData. Specifically, I will discuss the role of causation in these cases. Why? Because causation is important to understanding not only my vote in N-Data but also, I believe, the D.C. Circuit’s decision in Rambus. I suggest that the Court’s analysis of causation, which was squarely contrary to its teaching in Microsoft, is the most fundamental reason that decision was flawed.