MONOPOLY
monopoly,n. 1. Control or advantage obtained by one supplier or producer over the commercial market within a given region. Cf. OLIGOPOLY. 2. The market condition existing when only one economic entity produces a particular product or provides a particular service. • The term is now commonly applied also to situations that approach but do not strictly meet this definition. [Cases: Monopolies 12(1.3). C.J.S. Monopolies §§ 28–37, 52, 64–66.]
“[Ninety per cent] is enough to constitute a monopoly; it is doubtful whether sixty or sixty-four per cent is enough; and certainly thirty-three per cent is not.” United States v. Aluminum Co. of Am., 148 F.2d 416, 424 (2d Cir. 1945)(Hand, J.).
“In the modern sense, a monopoly exists when all, or so nearly all, of an article of trade or commerce within a community or district, is brought within the hands of one person or set of persons, as practically to bring the handling or production of the commodity or thing within such single control to the exclusion of competition or free traffic therein. A monopoly is created when, as the result of efforts to that end, previously competing businesses are so concentrated in the hands of a single person or corporation, or a few persons or corporations acting together, that they have power, for all practical purposes, to control the prices of a commodity and thus to suppress competition. In brief, a monopoly is the practical suppression of effective business competition which thereby creates a power to control prices to the public harm.” 54A Am. Jur. 2d Monopolies, Restraints of Trade, and Unfair Trade Practices § 781, at 107 (1996).
bilateral monopoly.A hypothetical market condition in which there is only one buyer and one seller, resulting in transactional delays because either party can hold out for a better deal without fearing that the other party will turn to a third party.
legal monopoly.The exclusive right granted by government to business to provide utility services that are, in turn, regulated by the government. [Cases: Public Utilities 113. C.J.S. Public
Utilities §§ 4, 69, 71.]
natural monopoly.A monopoly resulting from a circumstance over which the monopolist has no power, as when the market for a product is so limited that only one plant is needed to meet demand.
3.Patents. The exclusive right of a patentee to make, use, sell, offer for sale, or import an invention for a certain period, subject to the rights of the owners of other patents that would be infringed. [Cases: Patents 185.C.J.S. Patents § 10.]“[T]he statute of monopolies, 21 Jac. I. c. 3, allows a royal patent of privilege to be granted for fourteen years to any inventor of a new manufacture, for the sole working or making of the same; by virtue whereof a temporary property becomes vested in the patentee.” William Blackstone, 2 Commentaries on the Laws of England 407 (1766).
[Blacks Law 8th]