Single Entity Ruling: 'Needle' in Haystack

Abstract

This article provides the legal argument why the Seventh Circuit was wrong to classify the National Football League ("NFL") as a single entity under antitrust law for the purposes of trademark licensing.

This article is best read along with my longer, economics-driven piece, "Why the Single Entity' Defense Can Never Apply to NFL Clubs," which appeared in Fordham Intellectual Property, Media & Entertainment Law Journal, Vol. 18, No. 4, 2008.

Keywords: antitrust, single entity, single entity defense, Copperweld, National Football League, NFL, NFL Properties, licensing, trademarks, Sherman Act, Section 1, collusion