In its landmark ruling in Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois in 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court restricted standing to sue for recovery of antitrust damages to direct purchasers. However, antitrust damages are typically (in part) passed on to intermediaries lower in the chain of production and...

We formulate a simple model of optimal defensive disclosure by a monopolist facinguncertain antitrust enforcement and test its implications using unique data on defensivedisclosures and patents by IBM during 1955-1989. Our results indicate that strongerantitrust enforcement leads to more...