Michael A. Carrier, distinguished professor at Rutgers Law School, has published, with co-authors, IP and Antitrust: An Analysis of Antitrust Principles Applied to Intellectual Property Law, Second Edition (Wolters Kluwer Law & Business).

The Rutgers Law scholar says he joined the leading treatise on antitrust and intellectual property (IP) law because of the complex issues presented by this intersection of fields. “In a nutshell, the IP laws provide a right to exclude while the antitrust laws sometimes punish that exclusion,” explains Carrier, who teaches IP, antitrust, and property law at Rutgers. “These issues arise in vital, fast-moving industries like pharmaceuticals and technology and provide significant challenges for courts.”

The 2015 supplement to the two-volume reference, written with contributors Herbert Hovenkamp, Mark Janis, Mark Lemley, and Christopher Leslie, includes new cases involving settlements by which a brand-name drug company pays a generic firm to delay entering the market. “There also have been new cases involving ‘product hopping,’ in which a brand firm switches from one version of a drug to another, often to block generics,” he says. “Another area involves licensing. For example, what obligations are imposed on a patent-holder that promises to reasonably license patents incorporated into a widely-adopted standard?”

Carrier adds that these changes aren’t limited to the United States, noting that in the past year there have been many important developments in Canada, China, Europe, Korea, and other countries.

While the treatise is intended for various audiences including judges, lawyers, and business executives, a key audience includes the companies that if found to violate the antitrust laws could be responsible for paying significant fines. “Companies must consider antitrust law when they enter into licensing arrangements and other business conduct.”

And it is not just business executives who are utilizing the treatise. As the only comprehensive resource fully examining IP from an antitrust perspective, it has been cited in the Supreme Court, court of appeals, district courts, and scholarly literature.

Co-director of the Rutgers Institute for Information Policy and Law, Carrier is the author of Innovation for the 21st Century: Harnessing the Power of Intellectual Property and Antitrust Law (Oxford University Press 2009, paperback 2011).

The law scholar is also the editor of Critical Concepts in Intellectual Property Law: Competition (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011), and has written more than 75 book chapters and law review articles in journals including the Stanford, Michigan, Penn, and Duke law reviews.

Carrier earned his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his Juris Doctor from University of Michigan Law School.