The US Supreme Court in Illinois Tool Works Inc v Independent Ink Inc has removed the longstanding assumption that having a patent is enough to generate market power for competition law purposes and consequently for competition law to prohibit tieing other goods or services to the patented products.
Competition laws across the world control abuses of market power. A classic such abuse is to lever your strength in one product by tieing another product to it. Examples of this abound throughout the case law. For instance, a dominant manufacturer of nail guns unlawfully gaining itself a meaningful share of the generic nail market by ensuring that only their own branded nails should be used in their guns. More recently, we have also seen this issue arise in elements of the fine (under appeal) imposed by the European Commission following the finding that Microsoft unlawfully bundled Media Player into Windows.
