Innovate, Integrate, and Cooperate: Antitrust Changes and Challenges in the United States and the European Economic Community

In the early 1980s, several large American electronics companies reluctantly formed the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation ("MCC") to develop a supercomputer. MCC is a joint venture initially composed of twenty computer companies, with an annual budget of about $75 million and a staff of over four hundred. MCC runs several programs, the most ambitious of which is a ten-year program aimed at breakthroughs in computer architectures, software, and artificial intelligence. MCC will own the licenses and patents of the developed technologies.

Individual computer companies sponsoring MCC will hold exclusive manufacturing and marketing rights for three years before the research is published. After that time other companies will be permitted to purchase licenses.