When Claus-Dieter Ehlermann asked me in late December 2004 whether I would be willing to contribute to the 10th Annual Competition Law and Policy Workshop, I was not quite sure whether he was about to offer me a Christmas gift or another Dardanians’ present. 1 After all, the relationship between the protection of intellectual property and the maintenance of free competition is the subject of an age-old debate2 to which I had already con- tributed too much, with too little impact. Mainstream thinking had changed direction twice over time, and missed the middle ground again just when it was about to find it. 3 So why again set foot in.
