Ropes & Gray LLP











Search
Go
Site MapDisclaimerContact Us


Print


 Mark S. Popofsky
Partner




Ropes & Gray
One Metro Center
700 12th Street, NW, Suite 900
Washington, DC 20005-3948

T + 1-202-508-4624
F + 1-202-383-9377
+ 1-202-508-4642 secretary
E-mail
PRACTICES
Litigation

Antitrust

    Intellectual Property
    Practice

    Mark S. Popofsky is a partner in Ropes & Gray's Litigation Department and co-head of the firm’s Antitrust Practice.

    Professional Experience

    Mark litigates antitrust, intellectual property, commercial, and appellate matters, represents parties before the U.S. antitrust enforcement agencies, and counsels clients on competition issues with a particular emphasis on the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property in technology-laden industries.

    Mark’s litigation practice ranges from jury and bench trials—both for plaintiffs and defendants—to appeals before the federal circuit courts and the U.S. Supreme Court. He represents parties in antitrust investigations, mergers, and other matters before the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and other federal agencies. He counsels leading technology, consumer products, pharmaceutical, healthcare, aerospace, defense, publishing, entertainment, manufacturing, energy, telecommunications, and applied sciences companies in connection with investigations of, and matters concerning, vertical restraints, standard setting, joint ventures, and competitor collaborations.

    Mark served in the late 1990s as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, where he played a key role in United States v. Microsoft Corp., the Department’s landmark monopolization suit. Prior to being named Senior Counsel, Mark served in the Antitrust Division’s Appellate Section. His notable successes included United States v. Nippon Paper Indus. Co., the precedent-setting decision that upheld criminal extraterritorial enforcement of the Sherman Act. Mark also represented the United States in numerous merger and nonmerger investigations and served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney in Alexandria, Virginia (the “Rocket Docket”), where he tried numerous cases to verdict. Following government service, Mark spent ten years as a partner and chair of a Technology and Competition Practice for a major international law firm.

    An adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, Mark has taught the Advanced Antitrust Law and Economics Seminar since 2000. He is a frequent speaker and notable author on competition-related issues, and is a member of the ABA’s Antitrust Section’s Leadership Council.

    Recent representations include:
    • Antitrust counsel for a major telecommunications firm in connection with rival’s demand for access to programming.
    • Antitrust counsel for a major pharmaceutical company in asserting monopolization claims challenging bundled discounts, fraudulent assertion of patents, and other conduct in a major patent-antitrust litigation. Also handled the economic experts in related patent litigation remedy phase and briefing on appeal.
    • Successfully cleared the combination of two leading manufacturers of aircraft wheels and brakes before the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division.
    • Successfully obtained dismissal of monopolization and related claims in a suit involving the aviation industry.
    • Antitrust counsel in successful litigated arbitration for major European defense firm.
    • Successfully obtained dismissal of antitrust claims challenging the formation of a leading film exhibitor.


    Honors & Awards

    • Best Lawyers in America (2010)
    • Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business (2005 - 2009)
    • Lawdragon 3000 (2010)
    • The International Who's Who of Competition Lawyers & Economists (2008 - 2010)
    • Who's Who Legal (2008 - 2009)
    • Who's Who in America (2008 - 2009)
    • Super Lawyers for Antitrust Litigation (2009 - 2010)
    • PLC Which Lawyer (2009)


    Publications



    Presentations & Speeches

    • Testimony on Direct Evidence in Merger Analysis before the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice for Workshop on the Horizontal Merger Guidelines Review Project (2009)
    • “Competitor Collaborations, Dominant Firms, and Evolving Markets,” ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting (2009)
    • “Section 2 and the Rule of Reason,” George Mason Annual Antitrust Symposium (2007)
    • “Predatory Pricing: Strategic Theory and Legal Policy,” NTCA Legal Conference (2006)
    • Testimony on Tying before the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice for hearings on “Section 2 of the Sherman Act: Single Firm Conduct as Related to Competition” (2006)
    • “A Practical Approach to Antitrust Compliance Problems Confronting Corporate Counsel,” ALI-ABA Legal Ethics Teleseminar Series (2006)
    • “Efficient Integration or Illegal Monopolization? Package Licensing, Economic Bundling, and the Antitrust Principles Applicable to the Business Strategies of Leading Firms,” New York State Bar Association Antitrust Section Annual Meeting (2006)
    • “Dagher and Illinois Tool Works: The Supreme Court Steps In,” ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting (2006)
    • “The New Standard-Setting Environment for Standard-Setting: Dispatches from the Front Lines,” ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting (2005)
    • “International Antitrust Developments after Empagran and Intel,” ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting (2005)
    • “Monopoly Without Apology,” NERA Antitrust Conference (2004)
    • “International Antitrust,” California Bar Association, Golden State Institute International Competition Program (2004)
    • “Section 2: New Learning,” ABA Antitrust Section Spring Meeting (2003)
    • “Joint Ventures & Antitrust,” New York State Bar Association Antitrust Section Annual Meeting (2002)
    • “Standard-Setting and Antitrust,” Technology & Competition Conference (2002)
    • “United States v. Microsoft Corp. and Antitrust Enforcement in the New Millennium,” Houston Bar Association (2001)
    • “Rambus and Standard-Setting,” ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting (2001)
    • “Antitrust, The New Economy, and Developments in U.S. International Antitrust,” Bundesverbrand Der Deutschen Industrie, Frankfurt am Main (2000)

    Media Appearances
    • “Federal Circuit Opens Door to Patent Defence,” Global Competition Review (Apr. 2009)
    • “DOJ Study on monopoly may be put to test in Yahoo-Google case,” National Law Journal (Sept. 2008)
    • “Owner of Small Coffee Shop Takes on Java Titan Starbucks,” USA Today (Dec. 2006)
    • “Club Deals: Collusion or Illusion?” The Deal (Nov. 2006)
    • “FTC v. Rambus,” Intellectual Property Lawcast (Nov. 2006)
    • “Airlines Accused of Collusion,” BBC America Evening News (June 2006)
    • “Illinois Tool Works,” IP Law 360 (Mar. 2006)
    • “Intel Colonizes with Chipsets,” Cnet.com news (Aug. 2004)
    • “The Slippery Scope of Antitrust Law,” Washington Post (June 2002)
    • “US Probes Whether Big Banks Stifled Rival in Currency Trading,” The Wall Street Journal (May 2002)
    • “Microsoft Antitrust Accord Would Place Few Restrictions on Entering New Markets,” The Wall Street Journal (Nov. 2001)
    • “Microsoft Asks High Court to Intervene,” Los Angeles Times (Aug. 2001)



    Professional & Civic Activities

    • Georgetown University Law Center, Adjunct Professor of Advanced Antitrust Law and Economics (2000-present)


    Bar Admissions
    • California, 1994
    • Washington, D.C., 1997


    Courts
    • Supreme Court of the United States, 1998
    • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, 2008
    • U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, 1997
    • U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, 2007
    • U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, 1996
    • U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, 2000
    • U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, 2005
    • U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 1995
    • U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 2002


    Clerkships
    • Honorable Dorothy W. Nelson, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit


    Education
    • 1993, J.D., magna cum laude, Harvard Law School; Executive Editor, Harvard Law Review
    • 1990, A.B., magna cum laude and Highest Honors in History and Economics, Brown University; Phi Beta Kappa


    ©2010 Ropes & Gray LLP. All rights reserved.
    Back