Justice Dept. Antitrust Chief Instructs China on IP

The Justice Department’s top antitrust official urged his Chinese counterparts to think carefully about using their powers to curb intellectual property licensing, citing potential costs to innovation.

Makan Delrahim used a Feb. 1 speech in Beijing to promote his free-market approach to IP policy, a topic that’s high on his agenda in U.S. enforcement. He echoed many of the same points he laid out in a November speech on IP that was widely regarded as being more friendly to patent holders than antitrust officials have been in the past.

The use of antitrust laws to address IP licensing problems has ...