Merger doctrine
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The phrase "merger doctrine" is a term of law that actually occurs in several different legal areas.
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[edit] Antitrust
In U.S. antitrust law, the phrase "merger doctrine" is used to broadly describe the approaches that courts have taken to address mergers between corporations which might tend to reduce competition and raise prices. More specifically, courts tend to make separate discussions of a horizontal merger doctrine (where direct competitors merge) and vertical merger doctrine (where a company merges with its own suppliers and distributors, cutting them off from supplying or distributing to competitors).
[edit] Civil procedure
The merger doctrine in civil procedure stands for the proposition that when litigants agree to a settlement, and then seek to have their settlement incorporated into a court order, the court order actually extinguishes the settlement and replaces it with the authority of the court to supervise the behavior of the parties. Under this doctrine, the court is free to modify its order as necessary to achieve justice in the case, and may hold a party that breaches the agreement in contempt of court.
[edit] Copyright
In United States copyright law, the merger doctrine holds that if an idea and the way to express it are so intricately tied that the ways of expression have little possible variation, there will not be copyright infringement, lest the copyright prevent others from expressing the same idea. The overall principle is that of the idea-expression divide, which is that one can hold a copyright in an expression, but not in an idea.
One case involving this was Ets-Hokin v. Skyy Spirits Inc., 225 F.3d 1068 (9th Cir. 2000) [1], in which the court ruled that the whole vodka bottle in that case was driven by function, was not subject to copyright, and could not be protected by copyright law for that reason. While the label might have been protected by copyright, it was ruled to be incidental to the use and not significant.
[edit] Criminal law
The merger doctrine in the common law of criminal law requires that lesser included charges merge into more serious offenses charged. For example, a criminal defendant could not be convicted of both assault and robbery stemming from a single event, because a robbery includes an assault. Similarly, manslaughter cannot act as the "underlying felony" for the purposes of a felony murder charge, since it would have the effect of making all manslaughters felony murder. The offenses therefore merge together, and the defendant can be convicted of only the robbery, or only the assault in the first case, and only the manslaughter in the second.
Solicitation to commit a crime and attempt to commit a crime, although not strictly speaking lesser included offenses, merge into the completed crime. However, an important exception to the merger doctrine is the crime of conspiracy, which does not merge into the completed crime. Some states have eliminated the merger doctrine, permitting defendants to be convicted of both the lesser included charge and the greater charge.
[edit] Family law
Historically, the merger doctrine (a.k.a. "doctrine of merger") was the notion that marriage caused a woman's legal identity to merge with that of her husband. Thus, a woman could not sue or testify against her husband any more than he could sue or testify against himself. Since her identity had merged with his, the two were now considered one legal entity.
[edit] Real property
In the law of real property, the merger doctrine stands for the proposition that the contract for the conveyance of property merges into the deed of conveyance; therefore, any guarantees made in the contract that are not reflected in the deed are extinguished when the deed is conveyed to the buyer of the property. The merger doctrine traditionally only applies to covenants of title. The parties may by contract abrogate the merger doctrine, providing that some or all terms of the contract survive the closing and delivery of the deed.
[edit] Trust law
In the law of trusts the term "doctrine of merger" refers to the fusing of legal and equitable title in the event the same person becomes both the sole trustee and the sole beneficiary of a trust. In such a case, the trust is sometimes deemed to have terminated (with the result that the beneficiary owns the trust property outright). See R. Wellman, L. Waggoner & O. Browder, Palmer's Cases and Materials on Trusts and Succession 489 (4th ed. 1983).
