Word: ftc
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Kirkpatrick insists that he was not shoved out. But it is no secret in Washington that the President has been bothered by the proconsumer vigor that Kirkpatrick injected into the once lethargic FTC. Under him the agency began requiring advertisers to submit periodic documentation of their claims. The FTC ordered a few advertisers-including Sugar Information, Inc. and the makers of Profile bread-to run corrective ads to straighten out earlier misleading claims. The FTC also advocated that broadcasters allow "counteradvertising" by groups that oppose a product or a message that regular advertisers are trying to push. Under the proposal...
Kirkpatrick will probably be succeeded by Lewis Engman, an aide to White House Domestic Policy Chief John Ehrlichman. There is speculation in Washington that Engman, who helped prepare the Administration's since-rejected proposal for a value-added tax, may not continue the FTC's strong proconsumer orientation. But the job sometimes makes the man. After drawing some initial criticism, a number of Nixon appointees have turned out to be eager and effective regulators. Among them: Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William J. Casey (who is moving to the State Department), Environmental Protection Administrator William Ruckelshaus-and Kirkpatrick...
Faithful Copies. The case is unusual on several important counts. It marks only the second time in recent years that the FTC has sought to break up an alleged monopoly-normally a job left to the Justice Department. Further, the commission did not base its case on either of the two standard antimonopoly statutes-the Sherman and the Clayton antitrust laws. It leaned instead on a broad and seldom used section in the basic FTC act outlawing "unfair methods of competition in commerce...
Xerox, says the complaint, controls 60% of the overall copier market and fully 95% of the business in "plain paper" copiers, which reproduce on stock that does not need to be chemically treated. To redress such dominance, the FTC proposed a series of sweeping measures that might allow other firms to copy Xerox's ubiquitous machines almost as faithfully as the machines copy whatever is put inside them. Xerox, the FTC said, should sell off its controlling interests in British and Japanese copier companies. Also, the Government wants Xerox customers to have the option of buying all Xerox equipment...
...promising to fight "every aspect" of the FTC's case, Xerox Chairman C. Peter McColough saved his heaviest fire for the patent-giveaway idea. Said he: "What is being challenged here is the very basis of the patent system-the concept that an inventor should be awarded exclusive rights to his invention for a period of time." The Government has, in fact, challenged that idea a few times before. In the interest of promoting competition, General Electric was forced to pass out patented electrical know-how to competitors in the early '50s. But rarely if ever...