Bloomberg Law Quotes Prof. Cotter on the Essential Facilities Doctrine

A May 24, 2021 Bloomberg Law article titled Apple Points to IP in Bid to Defeat an Epic Antitrust Claim discusses Apple's efforts to defeat one of the antitrust claims plaintiff Epic has raised in a high-stakes antitrust lawsuit against the smartphone maker. More specifically, Epic claims that federal antitrust law requires Apple to permit competing app distributors like Epic to have access to Apple's iOs platform as an "essential facility," even though the platform incorporates some IP-protected features. The article quotes Professor Tom Cotter as stating, among other things, that "Generally we don’t impose a duty under U.S. law to share or license your intellectual property," but that "it’s probably an overstatement to say that there could never possibly be a viable claim under the essential facilities doctrine, even if we are dealing with intellectual property."