Ignacio De Leon

Kozolchyk National Law Center

There is an international growing consensus about the need of promoting economic efficiency as the yardstick of modern economic policymaking, especially in the promotion of market transition in de-veloping countries. This essay objects the supporting premises of such assumption. It exposes why economic efficiency represents a normative criterion fo...

The previous chapter explored how IP legislation affords patent and copyright holders with a legal monopoly over their intellectual asset; with a view to reducing the amount of uncertainty they have over them. Other IPRs also are intended to grant exclusive control over valuable features of those assets. However, the market power allowed by such le...

In the previous chapter, we explored how the underlying kaleidoscopic structure of the patent system in particular, and of the intellectual property rights (IPRs) in general, stir uncertainty over the scope and duration of patent awards. The convoluted nature of the patent claim system is bound to produce a lax interpretation of patent claims under...

The scientific story of Charles Babbage (1791–1871) highlights the pitfalls of an invention that was brilliant yet could never be commercialized. In 1837, this English mathematician and computer pioneer developed what he called the “analytical engine,” a mechanical general-purpose computer that could carry out a variety of different operations base...

So far we have seen the inherent uncertainty that the IP system creates as a result of its structural complexity. The way patent claims are conceived generates a multilayer, intertwined system of broad and narrow mixed claims that is very hard to fathom, and that adds to the lack of resources by patent offices, thus leading to imprecise decisions g...

Two Brazilian stories highlight why proper IP management is important for firms to develop a competitive advantage supported on a better use of the IP institutions. The first one involves the licensing of biodegradable chemical technology developed at the Chemistry Institute of Universidad de Campinas (Brazil) successfully licensed to Contech in 20...

On June 21, 2016, Wall Street Journal reporter Juro Osawa (2016) described the lawsuit that the Chinese smartphone maker Huawei Technologies Co. filed against South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, Co., claiming that this company violated 11 of its mobile patents. Huawei’s strategy of becoming one of the world’s top smartphone manufacturers was the fir...

In December 2006, Xiang Dong Yu, an engineer hired at the Chinese branch of Ford Motor Co., stole 4000 proprietary documents from the company before tendering his resignation and leaving to work for a competitor. The value of the secrets contained in those papers was calculated at $50 million. Yu was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison and ord...

This book identifies the potential of intellectual property as a competitive asset for Latin American firms. The authors employ a cognitive approach that involves identifying why small firms are reluctant to register patents, resorting rather to alternative IP competitive strategies. This, in turn, results in the undercapitalization of intellectual...

Este libro desea reflejar el paso de la política de innovación en América Latina y el Caribe (ALC) hacia una etapa de creciente sofisticación y de mayor impacto sobre el desarrollo. Una evolución como esta es en parte producto de la transformación que las mismas economías y la actividad empresarial están atravesando en la región, y es también eco d...

Competition policy instruments are ill-suited to examine the fast dynamics of internet-based industries. The analytical flaws of competition policy methods stem from their emphasis on structural market analysis, as opposed to the fast speed of innovation in these industries. Competition policies hardly can adapt their methods to the assessment of t...

This paper presents a theory of market competition under uncertainty. This theory examines the capabilities developed by firms in order to seize business opportunities unforeseen hitherto, and the links between firms to limit the scope of market uncertainty emerging from independent firms acting in the market. The theory proposes a new approach tow...

This paper explores six flaws of competition policy: a)Cognitive dissonance in antitrust theory; b) lack of performance indicators; c) Legal uncertainty as by-product of antitrust policy tinkering; d) Obsession with premerger control; e) Antitrust legal formalism over economic substance, and f) The neglected role of competition advocacy.

A recent assessment by the IDB Secretariat at the annual meeting of the Latin American Competition Forum e the p of a poli a economic policies across the region. The background note advanced several hypotheses about why the policy does not scale to the forefront of countries economic policies. The IDB vividly stated: Poli is still a se di pla to pr...

Competition policymakers have long assumed the existence of a basic "core" competition policy agenda to be enforced regardless of the country’s state of development. If the aftermath of the policy turns out to be a failure, the instrumentation of the policy usually takes the blame; its core substratum seldom does. This paper challenges this assumpt...

This paper describes the interaction between Intellectual Property (IP) protection and competition policy in Latin America, as well as the institutional difficulties of Latin American countries in making progress towards an increased control of IP abuses. The first part gives a summary of the current state of IP protection in the region; the second...

This book challenges the received view about antitrust policy's alleged instrumental public interest role. The purpose of this book is to show why, contrary to conventional wisdom, antitrust policy does not support market institutions; on the contrary, it is rooted on antimarket traditions. The author highlights how the intellectual foundations of...

Dadas las crecientes disparidades de desarrollo tecnológico entre países innovadores y países importadores de tecnología, se plantea la viabilidad del régimen internacional de protección a los derechos de propiedad intelectual (DPI) y particularmente, las patentes. Bajo este régimen, se concede el monopolio legal a la patente por 20 años, pero en c...

This paper contends that the identification of a pro-competitive agenda in the process of regulatory reform undertaken in many developing countries, particularly in the field of utilities regulation, ultimately rests on the vision held by the authority about the sources of market failures. Conventional Industrial Organization theory assumes that th...

This paper offers some reflections about the adequacy of the conventional Industrial Organization view in providing a positive explanation of market behavior and economic causalities leading firms to undertake business strategies deemed as "restrictive". We explore the convenience of using this view as a normative yardstick for enforcing competitio...

A decade ago the few people in Latin America who had heard the word “antitrust” would probably associated it with industrial organization, government intervention and “market failures”. It was believed then, that economic liberalization, if not protected, would encourage incumbent firms to forestall the entry of competitors in the market, most ofte...

This paper explores the limitations of the current patent system regulating inventions, by contending that in its current form, such regulation is bound to create legal monopolies and entry barriers to potential competitors. Thus, the paper explains why the law should adopt a different pro-competitive approach towards the assignment of these rights...

This paper examines the institutional context where competition policy in Latin America is enforced. In particular, it places attention on the historical context of economic institutions in the region, and how these institutions have influenced competition policy enforcement. It also delineates three conditions necessary for competition policy enfo...

"It is a task of a contemporary social theory of law to study the fate of law in periods of revolutionary change, not so much in order to examine the rapid substitution of new laws for old but rather in order to examine the ways in which foundations are or are not laid for a stable and just legal order in the future, after the revolution has settle...

Este ensayo pretende esbozar algunas consideraciones teóricas y prácticas que cuestionan la idoneidad de aplicar políticas antimonopolios para promover la competencia en el comercio internacional1. En primer lugar, se identifican algunas limitaciones teóricas que ponen en duda las políticas por su incapacidad para aprehender la competencia como fen...

This Article explores how institutions in developing countries shape competition policy-making and regulatory reform, the implications of this process on the adoption of a pro-market strategy to promote development, and the implications of its application to a country transitioning from a command economy to a market economy such as China.

This essay examines why the conceptual framework of antitrust policies regulating competition inevitably conflicts with the development of wealth creation processes that see competition as an exercise in entrepreneurship. The principle of "equilibrium" on which imperfect competition theories and their derivatives are based not only obscures the imp...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of London, 1999.