|
|
Current Patent Strategies in Pharmaceutical Industry and their Impact on EU Competition Law Policies
Molitorisová, Alexandra ; Dobřichovský, Tomáš (advisor) ; Pítra, Vladimír (referee)
The thesis reviews current patent strategies of original pharmaceutical companies and their tangled role in the fabric of European pharmaceutical innovation and competition. It addresses several components of the European pharmaceutical industry such as regulatory framework, patent filing and dispute strategies and competition law. It argues that patent law is embedded in a broader competition law framework however plays on a separate field where it governs primarily the entry to its exclusive space by market actors. However it asserts that competition law should serve as a time referee for the patent law playfield and check if the abusive prolongation of exclusive patent position does not occur. The thesis deliberates that in view of ever rising number of patent applications, abuse of the patent system may become symptomatic to the system. The Commission data presented in the Final Report on the pharmaceutical sector inquiry are again inspected. Although data should be used with caution, it revealed a good quantitative base for assessment of a system which seemingly becomes more entropic, complex and susceptible to abuse. Therefore the underlying principles in both patent and competition law should be upheld more strongly than ever. It is the principle of fairness that should have normative force...
|
|
|
Collective administration in digital era
Bajáková, Eva ; Wünschová Pujmanová, Alexandra (advisor) ; Žikovská, Petra (referee)
The aim of the present thesis is to examine an impact of reproductive and recording technique and of the global network of the Internet on the institute of collective management of copyright and related rights which forms traditional part of the system of copyright law. Firstly, the thesis embeds an issue of the institute of collective management into the appropriate legal framework and historical context. The delimitation of collective management's purpose follows; an emphasis is placed on the position of the collective manager of copyright as an intermediary between the competing interests of the right holders and interests of users. It is explained that the change of manners of communication of the work to the public from "point-to-mass" to "point-to-point" tends to weaken such position. The real and legal monopoly of collective management is scrutinized and conclusions of academics drawn from the coexistence of copyright management companies on the market in the United States are contrasted in the following part of the thesis. The issue with licenses is addressed. The collision between the potential ubiquity of works made available on the Internet and the principle of territoriality (lex loci protectionis) is described and, simultaneously, legal issues connected with functioning of the system...
|
|
|
An Impact of the Leniency Program and the Institution of Settlement upon the Civil Enforcement of Competition Law
Knebel, Petr ; Šmejkal, Václav (advisor) ; Svoboda, Pavel (referee)
Impact of the Leniency Program and the Institution of Settlement upon the Civil Enforcement of Competition Law Keywords: competition law, leniency program, private enforcement of competition law The purpose of this thesis is to assess the mutual interference between the private and public enforcement of competition law. In the public enforcement there is growing trend of using modern tools such as leniency programme or settlement decisions. These are based on the cooperation between competition authorities and undertakings. On the other hand such cooperation and very often disclosure of confidential information by undertakings may threaten their position in terms of potential civil law suits by consumers or business partners. It is often claimed that private and public enforcement are complementary but when it comes to these modern tools a clear conflict arises. The thesis consists of two following two chapters. First chapter describes the evolution of private enforcement of competition law within EU. From its underdeveloped beginnings ten years ago it started to attract attention. European Commission has recently published a proposal of a directive which should foster the private enforcement within EU. Second half of the first chapter describes the development of new modern tools within the public...
|
|
|
Abuse of dominance with respect to pricing practices
Ryneš, Oto ; Horáček, Vít (advisor) ; Horáček, Tomáš (referee)
- english This thesis is dedicated to the abuse of dominant position with respect to the pricing practices. Initially, it analyses the relevant legal framework of the abuse of dominant position as the legal phenomenon. Then, it draws attention to the field of individual anti-competition pricing practices, including the developing field of margin squeeze abuses. Major contribution rests with the analysis of the award of damages in particular cases in the Czech Republic. This work also includes an in-depth philosophical examination of selected competition law issues.
|
|
|
Protection of Economic Competition - Agreements Violating Competition
Samek, Jiří ; Horáček, Vít (advisor) ; Pelikán, Robert (referee)
1 Abstract - Protection of Economic Competition - Agreements Violating Competition Agreements distorting competition are quite dangerous for the goals of competition law and it is necessary to search for them, find them and punish them. Therefore, the goal of this thesis was to provide a complex explanation of the issue of prohibited agreements from the point of view of Czech and European competition law. Relatively brusque diction of primary sources of law is typical for competition law and for the regulation of prohibited agreements. For this reason a large area of law is left to the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and also for national courts in administrative judiciary. The thesis has in mind also the importance of the soft law which serve as a manual of the approach of the European Commission and the Office for the protection of competition which leads to a higher level of legal certainty. First chapter is dedicated to the explanation of basic terms of economic competition and of competition law. The largest space is given to the definition of the Czech term "competitor" and its European equivalent "undertaking". This chapter also explains relevant market and the matter of relationship between Czech and European competition law. The whole second chapter is dedicated to the...
|
|
|
Abuse of dominant position in Czech law and European law
Peták, Šimon ; Černá, Stanislava (advisor) ; Patěk, Daniel (referee) ; Kindl, Jiří (referee)
This paper analyzes regulation of abuse of dominant position under the law of the European Union and under the Czech law. Both the European and Czech competition laws are not only very similar, as the Czech Act on Protection of Competition is inspired by the European competition law, but after the so called modernization of the European competition law, including the decentralization of its enforcement, the Czech authorities are entitled (and obliged at the same time) to apply the European competition law. Given the special relation between the two legal orders, this paper does not attempt to compare the two, but rather to analyze them it their mutual relation, which is the basic view for the submitted analysis. Firstly, a basic introduction to the problems of competition economics is presented, including characteristics of the basic functions and principles thereof. An explanation of the economic background and different models of competition follows, particularly of those important for understanding the specifics of dominant undertakings' behaviour and motivation. Models of monopoly, oligopoly and monopolistic competition are briefly described in opposition to the model of perfect competition and also some other important approaches to this issue are addressed, including the basic views of the...
|
|
|
Liberal theory and practice of competition law
Horych, Jan ; Tryzna, Jan (referee)
Liberal theory and practice of competition law Abstract The presented thesis focuses on the matter of competition law from the point of view of selected schools of economic thought. The goal of the thesis is to provide a comprehensive insight into the content and nature of legal norms in the field of competition law and offer a comparison of views of specific traditions of economic theory on the selected bodies of legislation in force. The wider objective of the thesis is to explore the application possibilities of the findings of various economic theories to legal phenomena, with the thesis exploring both the anglo-american branch of economic analysis of law and heterodox approaches, that originate from the continental economic theory and jurisprudence. To this end, the thesis picks three distinct schools of economic thought, that are commonly labeled as liberal, these being the Austrian, Chicago and Freiburg school of economics, each having different methodology, theoretical and analytical conclusions and prescriptive suggestions. Bodies of legislation in force selected for the purposes of this thesis are competition law statutes of the Czech Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany and the EU. The Structure of the thesis applies the "from general to specific" method of explanation, i.e. introductory...
|
|
|
Liberal theory and practice of competition law
Horych, Jan ; Bažantová, Ilona (advisor) ; Kühn, Zdeněk (referee) ; Večeřa, Miloš (referee)
Liberal theory and practice of competition law Abstract The presented thesis focuses on the matter of competition law from the point of view of selected schools of economic thought. The goal of the thesis is to provide a comprehensive insight into the content and nature of legal norms in the field of competition law and offer a comparison of views of specific traditions of economic theory on the selected bodies of legislation in force. The wider objective of the thesis is to explore the application possibilities of the findings of various economic theories to legal phenomena, with the thesis exploring both the anglo-american branch of economic analysis of law and heterodox approaches, that originate from the continental economic theory and jurisprudence. To this end, the thesis picks three distinct schools of economic thought, that are commonly labeled as liberal, these being the Austrian, Chicago and Freiburg school of economics, each having different methodology, theoretical and analytical conclusions and prescriptive suggestions. Bodies of legislation in force selected for the purposes of this thesis are competition law statutes of the Czech Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany and the EU. The Structure of the thesis applies the "from general to specific" method of explanation, i.e. introductory...
|
|
|
Private Enforcement of EU Competition Law
Šimeková, Zuzana
1 Thesis Summary Private Enforcement of EU Competition Law Zuzana Šimeková 1. Starting points and goals of the thesis The main goal of my thesis is the application of the ever-evolving contemporary issues of private enforcement of the EU competition law, its developments in the legislative area and the decision- making practice of the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union (the ECJ) to the pharmaceutical sector area. As regards the functioning of competition rules, the pharmaceutical sector found itself in the cross-hairs of the European Commission fairly recently. Its efforts resulted in the Pharmaceutical Sector Inquiry Final Report of 8 July 2009 (the Final Report). The primary subject-matter of my thesis is the assessment of the competition relationship dynamic between the originator and generic pharmaceutical companies, especially the degree by which the conduct by the originator pharmaceutical companies can delay market entry by the generic pharmaceutical companies and thereby negatively affect the consumers by (among other things) limiting availability of cheaper drugs. Despite the expectations of legal practitioners and academia, the European Commission did not rule in the Final Report whether the discovered conducts constitute violations of the EU competition law. The...
|
|
|
Abuse of dominant position in Czech law and European law
Peták, Šimon
This paper analyzes regulation of abuse of dominant position under the law of the European Union and under the Czech law. Both the European and Czech competition laws are not only very similar, as the Czech Act on Protection of Competition is inspired by the European competition law, but after the so called modernization of the European competition law, including the decentralization of its enforcement, the Czech authorities are entitled (and obliged at the same time) to apply the European competition law. Given the special relation between the two legal orders, this paper does not attempt to compare the two, but rather to analyze them it their mutual relation, which is the basic view for the submitted analysis. Firstly, a basic introduction to the problems of competition economics is presented, including characteristics of the basic functions and principles thereof. An explanation of the economic background and different models of competition follows, particularly of those important for understanding the specifics of dominant undertakings' behaviour and motivation. Models of monopoly, oligopoly and monopolistic competition are briefly described in opposition to the model of perfect competition and also some other important approaches to this issue are addressed, including the basic views of the...
|
guest ::
