Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services, Inc., 504 U.S. 451, 43 (1992)

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Cite as: 504 U. S. 451 (1992)

Scalia, J., dissenting

quite simply anomalous that a manufacturer functioning in a competitive equipment market should be exempt from the per se rule when it bundles equipment with parts and service, but not when it bundles parts with service. This vast difference in the treatment of what will ordinarily be economically similar phenomena is alone enough to call today's decision into question.

B

In the Court of Appeals, respondents sought to sidestep the impediment posed by interbrand competition to their invocation of the per se tying rule by zeroing in on the parts and service "aftermarkets" for Kodak equipment. By alleging a tie of parts to service, rather than of equipment to parts and service, they identified a tying product in which Kodak unquestionably held a near-monopoly share: the parts uniquely associated with Kodak's brand of machines. See Jefferson Parish, 466 U. S., at 17. The Court today holds that such a facial showing of market share in a single-brand aftermarket is sufficient to invoke the per se rule. The existence of even vibrant interbrand competition is no defense. See ante, at 470-471.

I find this a curious form of market power on which to premise the application of a per se proscription. It is enjoyed by virtually every manufacturer of durable goods requiring aftermarket support with unique, or relatively unique, goods. See P. Areeda & H. Hovenkamp, Antitrust Law ¶ 525.1, p. 563 (Supp. 1991). "[S]uch reasoning makes every maker of unique parts for its own product a holder of market power no matter how unimportant its product might be in the market." Ibid. (emphasis added).1 Under

1 That there exist innumerable parts and service firms in such industries as the automobile industry, see Brief for Automotive Warehouse Distributors Association et al. as Amici Curiae 2-3, does not detract from this point. The question whether power to control an aftermarket exists is quite distinct from the question whether the power has been exercised. Manufacturers in some markets have no doubt determined that exclusion-

493

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