Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services, Inc., 504 U.S. 451, 44 (1992)

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494

EASTMAN KODAK CO. v. IMAGE TECHNICAL SERVICES, INC.

Scalia, J., dissenting

the Court's analysis, the per se rule may now be applied to single-brand ties effected by the most insignificant players in fully competitive interbrand markets, as long as the arrangement forecloses aftermarket competitors from more than a de minimis amount of business, Fortner I, 394 U. S., at 501. This seems to me quite wrong. A tying arrangement "forced" through the exercise of such power no more implicates the leveraging and price discrimination concerns behind the per se tying prohibition than does a tie of the foremarket brand to its aftermarket derivatives, which—as I have explained—would not be subject to per se condemnation.2 As implemented, the Kodak arrangement challenged

ary intrabrand conduct works to their disadvantage at the competitive interbrand level, but this in no way refutes the self-evident reality that control over unique replacement parts for single-branded goods is ordinarily available to such manufacturers for the taking. It confounds sound analysis to suggest, as respondents do, see Brief for Respondents 5, 37, that the asserted fact that Kodak manufactures only 10% of its replacement parts, and purchases the rest from original equipment manufacturers, casts doubt on Kodak's possession of an inherent advantage in the aftermarkets. It does no such thing, any more than Kodak's contracting with others for the manufacture of all constituent parts included in its original equipment would alone suggest that Kodak lacks power in the interbrand micrographic and photocopying equipment markets. The suggestion implicit in respondents' analysis—that if a seller chooses to contract for the manufacture of its branded merchandise, it must permit the contractors to compete in the sale of that merchandise—is plainly unprecedented.

2 Even with interbrand power, I may observe, it is unlikely that Kodak could have incrementally exploited its position through the tie of parts to service alleged here. Most of the "service" at issue is inherently associated with the parts, i. e., that service involved in incorporating the parts into Kodak equipment, and the two items tend to be demanded by customers in fixed proportions (one part with one unit of service necessary to install the part). When that situation obtains, " 'no revenue can be derived from setting a higher price for the tied product which could not have been made by setting the optimum price for the tying product.' " P. Areeda & L. Kaplow, Antitrust Analysis ¶ 426(a), p. 706 (4th ed. 1988) (quoting Bowman, Tying Arrangements and the Leverage Problem, 67 Yale L. J. 19 (1957)). These observations strongly suggest that Kodak

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