15 U.S.C. § 4302 — Rule of reason standard

In an action under the antitrust laws^* or a similar State^* law, the conduct of (1) a person^* making or performing a contract to carry out a joint venture^*, or (2) a standards-development organization engaged in a standards-development activity, must not be treated as illegal per se, meaning automatically illegal. The conduct must be judged based on whether it is reasonable, taking into account all relevant factors affecting competition. These factors include, among other things, the effects on competition in properly defined, relevant research, development, product, process, and service markets. When deciding what a properly defined, relevant market is, worldwide capacity must be considered to the extent appropriate in the circumstances. This section does not define “rule of reason.”