Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services, Inc.

Eastman Kodak Company v. Image Technical Services, Inc., 504 U.S. 451 (1992), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a lack of market power in the primary equipment market does not necessarily preclude antitrust liability for exclusionary conduct in derivative aftermarkets.^[1]

Facts

Eastman Kodak manufactured and sold copying and micrographic equipment. In the early 1980s Independent Service Organizations (ISOs) began servicing Kodak equipment. Later, Kodak sought to take over servicing its own machines and limited the availability of Kodak replacement parts to the ISOs. The ISOs sued Kodak under sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act for refusing to sell Kodak replacement parts to them. The district court granted Kodak's motion for summary judgment. The ISOs appealed, and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the grant of summary judgment for Kodak. Kodak appealed to the Supreme Court.^[2]

Judgment

Majority opinion

The Supreme Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit's denial of Kodak's summary judgment motion. The Court held that this situation was not like Matsushita v. Zenith, where a predatory scheme was so unlikely to succeed as to preclude antitrust liability. The Court recognized that there information costs and lock-in that prevented switching copying and micrograhpic equipment, and that the ISOs should be allowed to present their case to the jury.^[3]

Scalia's dissent

Justice Scalia dissented, arguing that Kodak's summary judgment motion should be granted because Kodak lacked power in the interbrand copier and micrographic equipment market.^[4]

See also

• US antitrust law

Notes