FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALSFOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT



INK

INE

OMMUNICATIONS

, I

.;I

NREACH

NTERNET

LLC; O

ETWORKS

, dba OmsoftTechnologies, Inc.; N

ITELOG

, I

.,dba Red Shift Internet Services,No. 05-56023

Plaintiffs-Appellees,

D.C. No.



v.CV-03-05265-SVWSBC C

ALIFORNIA

, I

., fka PacificOPINIONBell Telephone Company; P

ACIFIC

ELL

NTERNET

ERVICES

; SBCA

DVANCED

OLUTIONS

, I

Defendants-Appellants.



Appeal from the United States District Courtfor the Central District of CaliforniaStephen V. Wilson, District Judge, PresidingArgued and SubmittedJune 5, 2007—Pasadena, CaliforniaFiled September 11, 2007Before: Sidney R. Thomas, Kim McLane Wardlaw, andRonald M. Gould, Circuit Judges.Opinion by Judge Thomas;Dissent by Judge Gould

12177

COUNSEL

Robert A. Mittelstaedt and Craig E. Stewart, Jones Day, SanFrancisco, California, for appellants SBC California, Inc.,Pacific Bell Internet Services, and SBC Advanced Solutions,Inc.Maxwell M. Blecher and Gary M. Joye, Blecher & Collins,P.C., Los Angeles, California, for appellees linkLine Commu-nications, Inc., In-Reach Internet LLC, Om Networks, dbaOmsoft Technologies, Nitelog, Inc., dba Red Shift InternetServices.John Thorne and Paul J. Larkin, Jr., Verizon CommunicationsInc., Arlington Virginia; Aaron M. Panner, Kellogg, Huber,Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, P.L.L.C., Washington, D.C.;and Richard G. Taranto, Farr & Taranto, Washington, D.C.,for amicus curiae Verizon Communications, Inc.

12180L

INK

INE

OMMUNICATIONS

v. SBC C

ALIFORNIA

OPINION

THOMAS, Circuit Judge:This appeal presents the question of whether the SupremeCourt’s decision in

Verizon Communications, Inc. v. LawOffices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP

, 540 U.S. 398 (2004)(“

Trinko

”), bars a plaintiff from claiming a violation of § 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act by virtue of an alleged pricesqueeze perpetrated by a competitor who also serves as theplaintiff’s supplier at the wholesale level, but who has no dutyto deal with the plaintiff absent statutory compulsion. Weconclude that it does not, and affirm the order of the districtcourt denying judgment on the pleadings.IThis action was filed by linkLine Communications, Inc.,In-Reach Internet LLC, Om Networks, and Nitelog, Inc. (col-lectively “linkLine”), who are Internet Service Providers(“ISPs”) who sell DSL

access to the internet to retail customers.

While some ISPs affiliated with local telephone companiesown their own infrastructure and facilities for transmittingdata between the internet and consumers, these four leasethose facilities variously from SBC California, Inc., PacificBell Internet Services, and SBC Advanced Solutions, Inc.(collectively “SBC Entities”).As is true in many regions, because of the development of the telecommunications industry and the costs of building the

DSL (digital subscriber line) is one of three popular ways for consum-ers to connect to the internet. The other two ways are dial-up service andcable modem service. Both DSL and dial-up service use existing phonelines to connect users to the internet, while cable uses the same cable linesused to transmit cable television signals.

For the purposes of this appeal, we assume as true the facts pleaded inlinkLine’s amended complaint.

See

Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c).

12181L

INK

INE

OMMUNICATIONS

v. SBC C

ALIFORNIA