Editing GSK plc (section)

===1973 Antitrust case over griseofulvin===
In the 1960s, Glaxo Group Ltd. (Glaxo) and Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) each owned patents covering various aspects of the antifungal drug [[griseofulvin]].<ref name="GSKICI">{{Cite web |title=UNITED STATES v. GLAXO GROUP LTD., 410 U.S. 52 (1973) |url=https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-supreme-court/410/52.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230911005137/https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-supreme-court/410/52.html |archive-date=11 September 2023 |website=FindLaw}}</ref>{{rp|54, nn. 1–2}}<ref name=LaHatte>{{cite journal |last1=LaHatte |first1=Gabrielle |title=Reverse Payments: When the Federal Trade Commission can Attack the Validity of Underlying Patents |url=http://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1051&context=jolti |journal=Case Western Reserve Journal of Law, Technology & the Internet |date=2011 |volume=2 |pages=37–73 |access-date=19 June 2015 |archive-date=18 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201118203407/https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1051&context=jolti |url-status=live }}</ref> They created a [[patent pool]] by [[cross-licensing]] their patents, subject to express licensing restrictions that the chemical from which the "finished" form of the drug (tablets and capsules) was made must not be resold in bulk form, and they licensed other drug companies to sell the drug in finished form and subject to similar restrictions.<ref name=GSKICI/>{{rp|54–55}}<ref name=LaHatte /> The effect and intent of the [[bulk-sale restriction]] was to keep the drug chemical out of the hands of small companies that might act as price-cutters, and the effect was to maintain stable, uniform prices.<ref name=Leslie>{{cite book |last1=Leslie |first1=Christopher R. |title=Antitrust Law and Intellectual Property Rights: Cases and Materials |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780195337198 |pages=574–75}}</ref><ref>[https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/410/52.html ''United States v. Glaxo Group Ltd''.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201204030146/https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/410/52.html |date=4 December 2020 }} at 62-63.</ref><ref name=Jacobson>{{cite book |last1=Jacobson |first1=Jonathan M. |title=Antitrust Law Developments |date=2007 |publisher=American Bar Association |isbn=9781590318676 |page=1162}}</ref>

The United States brought an antitrust suit against the two companies—''[[United States v. Glaxo Group Ltd.]]''—charging them with violation of the Sherman Act and also seeking to have the patents declared invalid.<ref name=GSKICI/>{{rp|55}}<ref name=LaHatte /> The trial court found that the defendants had engaged in several unlawful conspiracies, but dismissed the part of the suit seeking invalidation of patents and refused to grant as relief mandatory sales of the bulk drug chemical and compulsory licensing of the patents.<ref name=GSKICI/>{{rp|56}}<ref name=LaHatte /> The government appealed to the Supreme Court, which reversed, in ''[[United States v. Glaxo Group Ltd.]]'', 410 U.S. 52 (1973).<ref name=LaHatte />