Dear Jim:
All of the non-appointed people in the DOJ are Civil Servants. They do not change much between administrations. Microsoft came into being on a technicality. Bill Gates stole the Basic Interpreter from MITS. The only reason he was not thrown in jail was that he was "Underage" at the time. He is finally going to get his "Just Deserts".
Steve, the government wants to promote competition. If you created your empire (monopoly) by competing under US laws, you deserve to have it. If however you use tying, (you must buy $5000 of medicine from me, if you need this other $20 medicine not to die), blackmail, (don't buy from Steve's company or we will cut you off from your needed raw materials (that only we sell)), bribery, (here is $20K for you to not put Steve product on your shelves), or any other nefarious or insidious tactics. You do not want to compete in a truly free system where one of the allowed methods to hold a monopoly is they can hire people to kill you, destroy the company, kill relatives, etc. The Judicial system really hates it when someone out and out lies to them.
What the law wants is a level playing field where more than one competitor is fighting it out. They do allow however that the original creator of an idea, or his agents, time to exploit it before everyone can use it. This last capability is why most of the startups find the US a good place to do business.
Pete |
