Fourth and Fifth FTC Hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection consider more vigorous enforcement over vertical merger and innovation effects.

In the past two weeks, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) held two more hearings in its series of nine planned Hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century. In the fourth hearing, held on October 23 and 24, 2018, the FTC invited comment on the efficacy of the current intellectual property regime’s (including the USPTO, the FTC, the PTAB, and federal courts) efforts to promote innovation, and the proper use of the FTC’s enforcement and policy authorities in advancing innovation. The fifth hearing, held on November 1, 2018 reconsidered the conventional wisdom behind two long-standing principles of federal competition policy: the consumer welfare standard; and the starting point for merger analysis that vertical mergers, on the whole, create fewer competitive problems than horizontal ones.