William Howard Taft, the Origin of the Rule of Reason, and the Actavis Challenge

The origin of the Rule of Reason can be traced to the notable decision of United States v. Addyston Pipe & Steel Co. (1898), which was written by William Howard Taft during his tenure on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. There, Judge Taft distinguished between restraints that were mainly or entirely designed to restrain trade and those that are ancillary to a procompetitive main purpose. That fundamental distinction, drawn at the dawn of Sherman Act jurisprudence, forms the basis of the Rule of Reason that currently informs antitrust case law. This Article describes the context in which the Rule of Reason was debated and defended both in public discourse by President and Professor Taft and in the landmark Supreme Court decisions of Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States (1911) and United States v. American Tobacco Co.(1911). This Article then follows the development of the Rule of Reason through Board of Trade of City of Chicago v. United States (1918) to the modern era of antitrust jurisprudence. Finally, this Article describes the application of the Rule of Reason to reverse-payment settlements in the pharmaceutical sector, one of the most challenging contemporary antitrust issues. It does so through a discussion of the Supreme Court case FTC v. Actavis (2013) and the Third Circuit’s application of Actavis in In re Wellbutrin Xl Antitrust Litig. Indirect Purchaser Class (2017). This Article provided the foundation for, and introduction to, the remarks of Professor Michael A. Carrier and Mr. Saul Morgenstern that were delivered at the New York State Bar Association Antitrust Law Section’s William Howard Taft Lecture on September 28, 2017. Those remarks are reprinted in article form in this volume of the Columbia Business Law Review

Amex in Context: Tracing the Application of the Rule of Reason to Vertical Restraints

In his 1911 State of the Union address, President William Howard Taft, the former and future jurist, discussed the development of antitrust law since the Sherman Act’s passage: “Slowly the mills of the courts ground, and only gradually did the majesty of the law assert itself.” While Taft allowed for the possibility that some changes to the law may be beneficial, he also argued that the “object” of the Act was “near achievement,” and spoke against those calling to “abandon this work of twenty years and try another experiment[.]” Ultimately, the experiment was not abandoned, and the Sherman Act remains at the center of antitrust law in the United States. Meanwhile, the “mills of the courts” have continued to grind away. Various judges, justices—including the eventual Chief Justice Taft himself—and scholars have shaped the contours of antitrust law. One area of ongoing development is the organic rule of reason, which Taft played no small role in originating. The rule of reason was first articulated in United States v. Addyston Pipe & Steel Co.5 in 1898 and played an important role, not long after, in the titanic cases of Standard Oil of New Jersey v. United States6 and United States v. American Tobacco Co. During Taft’s presidency, however, the Supreme Court held that vertically imposed price restraints were per se illegal, and, over the decades that followed, the rule of reason began to wither and was gradually replaced, in significant part, by a series of per se rules

Assessing Qualitative Justifications Under Taft's Rule of Reason

In his landmark opinion in United States v. Addyston Pipe & Steel Co.,1 then-Judge William Howard Taft focused on the question of whether the restraint of trade there at issue was the primary motivation for the agreement or “merely ancillary to the main purpose of a lawful contract.”2 The doctrine of naked and ancillary restraints that Taft developed in Addyston Pipe marked the origins of the per se rule and rule of reason, which together form the fundamental framework that governs the Sherman Act today. In Taft’s presentation, restraints of trade must be understood in the context of their relationship to the purpose of the primary agreement. Where that purpose is legitimate and the relationship of the restraint is ancillary, courts should be hesitant to invalidate the restraint

Time for a New Sherman Act? The Debate on Antitrust Reform in Historical Perspective

The Sherman Antitrust Act (“Sherman Act” or “Act”), the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, and the Clayton Antitrust Act represent the core antitrust statutes. While these core statutes have remained largely the same, antitrust law has undergone sea changes since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To place the contemporary debate in historical context, this Introduction traces the trajectory of the Sherman Act and its diverging interpretations from the Act’s inception to date. This Introduction discusses the state of antitrust law during the early years of the twentieth-century, which featured the judicial development of the rule of reason. It also address the Progressive Era amendments to the antitrust laws, which reflected that era’s increased confidence in the efficacy of governmental and regulatory intervention as reflected in the amendments to the Clayton and FTC Acts. The Introduction then focuses on the state of antitrust law during the middle years of the twentieth century, sometimes characterized as operating according to a “big is bad” principle. It then turns to the modern era and discusses the last great revolution in antitrust thought: the arrival of the consumer welfare standard, which directs courts and practitioners to view antitrust law through the prism of how a given practice affects the consumer. This standard often, though not exclusively, focuses on a practice’s impact on prices and output. The Introduction discusses what may be the next revolution in antitrust thought, which some characterize as “the New Brandeis Movement.” It largely addresses the impact of increased concentration on economic as well as social and political issues. Finally, the Introduction concludes by discussing the various legislative proposals, from both Democrats and Republicans, to reform antitrust law, either through modest alterations or thorough overhauls

Precision delivery of RAS-inhibiting siRNA to KRAS driven cancer via peptide-based nanoparticles

Over 95% of pancreatic adenocarcinomas (PDACs), as well as a large fraction of other tumor types, such as colorectal adenocarcinoma, are driven by KRAS activation. However, no direct RAS inhibitors exist for cancer therapy. Furthermore, the delivery of therapeutic agents of any kind to PDAC in particular has been hindered by the extensive desmoplasia and resultant drug delivery challenges that accompanies these tumors. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) is a promising modality for anti-neoplastic therapy due to its precision and wide range of potential therapeutic targets. Unfortunately, siRNA therapy is limited by low serum half-life, vulnerability to intracellular digestion, and transient therapeutic effect. We assessed the ability of a peptide based, oligonucleotide condensing, endosomolytic nanoparticle (NP) system to deliver siRNA to KRAS-driven cancers. We show that this peptide-based NP is avidly taken up by cancer cell

Radial Lattice Quantization of 3D ϕ4\phi^4 Field Theory

The quantum extension of classical finite elements, referred to as quantum finite elements ({\bf QFE})~\cite{Brower:2018szu,Brower:2016vsl}, is applied to the radial quantization of 3d $\phi^4$ theory on a simplicial lattice for the $\mathbb R \times \mathbb S^2$ manifold. Explicit counter terms to cancel the one- and two-loop ultraviolet defects are implemented to reach the quantum continuum theory. Using the Brower-Tamayo~\cite{Brower:1989mt} cluster Monte Carlo algorithm, numerical results support the QFE ansatz that the critical conformal field theory (CFT) is reached in the continuum with the full isometries of $\mathbb R \times \mathbb S^2$ restored. The Ricci curvature term, while technically irrelevant in the quantum theory, is shown to dramatically improve the convergence opening, the way for high precision Monte Carlo simulation to determine the CFT data: operator dimensions, trilinear OPE couplings and the central charge.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

The Operator Product Expansion for Radial Lattice Quantization of 3D ϕ4\phi^4 Theory

At its critical point, the three-dimensional lattice Ising model is described by a conformal field theory (CFT), the 3d Ising CFT. Instead of carrying out simulations on Euclidean lattices, we use the Quantum Finite Elements method to implement radially quantized critical $\phi^4$ theory on simplicial lattices approaching $\mathbb{R} \times S^2$. Computing the four-point function of identical scalars, we demonstrate the power of radial quantization by the accurate determination of the scaling dimensions $\Delta_{\epsilon}$ and $\Delta_{T}$ as well as ratios of the operator product expansion (OPE) coefficients $f_{\sigma \sigma \epsilon}$ and $f_{\sigma \sigma T}$ of the first spin-0 and spin-2 primary operators $\epsilon$ and $T$ of the 3d Ising CFT.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

First observation of low energy electron neutrinos in a liquid argon time projection chamber

Citation: Acciarri, R., Adams, C., Asaadi, J., Baller, B., Bolton, T., Bromberg, C., . . . ArgoNeu, T. C. (2017). First observation of low energy electron neutrinos in a liquid argon time projection chamber. Physical Review D, 95(7), 15. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.95.072005The capabilities of liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs) to reconstruct the spatial and calorimetric information of neutrino events have made them the detectors of choice in a number of experiments, specifically those looking to observe electron neutrino (nu(e)) appearance. The LArTPC promises excellent background rejection capabilities, especially in this "golden" channel for both short and long baseline neutrino oscillation experiments. We present the first experimental observation of electron neutrinos and antineutrinos in the ArgoNeut LArTPC, in the energy range relevant to DUNE and the Fermilab Short Baseline Neutrino Program. We have selected 37 electron candidate events and 274 gamma candidate events, and measured an 80% purity of electrons based on a topological selection. Additionally, we present a separation of electrons from gammas using calorimetric energy deposition, demonstrating further separation of electrons from background gammas