But these advances may not be cemented. The right to repair movement arguably represents a new twist on antitrust law and in some ways pits itself against counterforces stemming from intellectual property law. Manufacturers continue to defend repair rules as consistent with existing antitrust precedents and necessary to protect their IP as well as innovation more broadly.
This article discusses recent developments in the right to repair sphere where we see these fights playing out. We examine key cases focused on the right to repair as well as related legislative efforts at the federal and state level. Then we discuss how the previous administration solidly supported the movement—and hints that the new administration will continue to ratchet up the right to repair.
I. Developments in Right to Repair Enforcement
There is currently no federal right-to-repair law on the books. But private plaintiffs as well as government enforcers have pursued right to repair lawsuits using existing antitrust and consumer protection statutes. These laws include sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, section 5 of the FTC Act, and the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (“MMWA”).
Under these laws, right to repair plaintiffs allege that manufacturers are unlawfully restricting competition in an “aftermarket,” namely, a market for products or services used after the initial purchase of a “primary” market product. Relevant aftermarkets could be for replacement parts, software that helps diagnose and fix problems in equipment, or repair services broadly. To succeed, plaintiffs may need to show that they are “locked in” to the aftermarket—competition in the primary market does not discipline manufacturers’ conduct in the aftermarket and harms competition and consumers.
Below, we discuss three recent lawsuits focused on right to repair issues.
Lambrix v. Tesla (N.D. Cal.) – A putative class of private plaintiffs who sued Tesla, the prominent electric vehicle company, survived a motion to dismiss in July 2024. They allege that Telsa is violating sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act as well as California laws by “restrict[ing] individual shops and car owners from conducting everything but the most minimal repair.”
The plaintiffs claim Tesla accomplishes this result by threatening to void warranties, controlling diagnostic service tools, and limiting access to information and tools crucial for repairs. They also claim that Tesla has “de facto exclusivity agreements” that prevent manufacturers from selling Tesla-compatible parts to anyone but Tesla.
The district court in 2024 denied Tesla’s motion to dismiss the case, finding that the plaintiffs sufficiently pleaded Tesla’s unlawful exclusion of competition in two single-brand aftermarkets: “Tesla Repair Services” and “Tesla-Compatible Parts.” The court permitted the plaintiffs’ claims that they were “locked-in” to the Tesla aftermarkets without discipline from competition in the “primary EV Market.”
In re: Deere & Company Repair Service Antitrust Litigation (N.D. Ill.) – Farmers recently scored a victory in right to repair litigation against agricultural equipment manufacturer John Deere. These plaintiffs claim that the company unlawfully limits competition for farm equipment repairs by preventing farmers and unaffiliated repair shops from acquiring necessary tools to complete repairs.
In November 2023, the court rejected Deere’s motion for judgment on the pleadings and let the plaintiffs’ Sherman Act claims go forward. Like the Tesla court, the judge found that the plaintiffs sufficiently pleaded the existence of a single-brand aftermarket (here, tractor repairs).
Relatedly, the court held that the “absence of information” about Deere’s restrictions, “combined with not only market power but also with the other Kodak concerns—such as significant financial outlays and lack of interchangeability—” was sufficient to establish farmers’ alleged “lock-in” to Deere’s single-brand repairs aftermarket. In contrast, other courts have required plaintiffs show that their lack of information about aftermarket restrictions came from deception or other conduct by the defendant. The John Deere court’s ruling may represent a shift in courts’ understanding of “lock-in” and how to define aftermarkets.
In 2025, the parties will wrap up fact discovery and head into expert reports and class certification.
FTC v. Deere & Company (N.D. Ill.) – On January 15, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), along with the state attorneys general for Illinois and Minnesota, filed a complaint levying similar allegations against Deere as the farmers (discussed above). The enforcers claim that Deere has illegally restricted access to tools that are necessary for farm equipment repairs in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act, Section 5 of the FTC Act, and related state laws. This has allegedly forced farmers to use Deere’s authorized dealers even when it would be cheaper and more efficient to self-service or use an independent service provider.
The FTC asserts that this results in unlawful monopolization of an aftermarket in Large Tractor and Combine repairs that require Deere’s restricted tools. The enforcers seek to enjoin Deere’s conduct and compel reasonable, nondiscriminatory access to Deere’s repair tools for equipment owners and independent shops.
If this suit succeeds, the FTC may expand a cognizable right to repair under existing law. The enforcer’s theory, that Deere excludes competition by restricting access to information and software necessary for repairs, seems somewhat of a stretch. At least one court—the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals—has rejected similar claims of exclusion by an independent aircraft engine repair shop. In Aerotec International, Inc. v. Honeywell International, Inc., the Ninth Circuit upheld the manufacturer’s ability to deny access to proprietary information needed for repairs to independent repair shops.
In each case above, the defendant manufacturers have not had the opportunity to argue for the procompetitive aspects of their conduct. Namely, that what the plaintiffs call “repair restrictions” are the manufacturers’ supposedly legitimate means of maintaining and protecting their intellectual property rights, product integrity, and cybersecurity.
Stay tuned for procompetitive benefit arguments along these lines from Tesla and John Deere in the class actions now they are past the motion to dismiss phase. For instance, John Deere may argue that it has a right to protect against unfettered access to its software which could otherwise enable and encourage copyright infringement of its proprietary code.
All three cases have a long way to go. But the plaintiffs’ successes so far may have turned the ratchet with broader repercussions for future right to repair claims and the law.
II. Recent Legislative Efforts Promoting the Right to Repair
At the state and federal level, legislators recently have sought to establish an affirmative right to repair. Below, we describe these efforts and their impact on the right to repair movement.
No current federal law explicitly establishes a right to repair for American consumers and businesses. There have been several recent efforts to pass such federal legislation, but all have failed:
Fair Repair Act – Introduced through the House in May 2024, this was the broadest effort to establish a federal right to repair. The bill would have required manufacturers of “digital electronic equipment” to make repair resources available to owners and independent repair providers on “fair and reasonable terms.”
Under the law, manufacturers would have been prohibited from deterring or obstructing independent repairs, including by deliberately designing products to fail or perform worse with third-party parts. The bill did not require manufacturers to divulge trade secrets, and completely exempted motor vehicle and medical device manufacturers.
The reach of the act otherwise appeared very extensive—“digital electronic equipment” was defined as “any product that depends for its functioning, in whole or in part, on digital electronics embedded in or attached to the product.” If enacted, the FTC and state attorneys general would have enforced the law. The bill died in committee with the end of the 2023-2024 legislative session.
Right to Equitable and Professional Auto Industry Repair Act – A bipartisan group of Representatives introduced a narrower right to repair bill in 2023 which would have applied only to “motor vehicles.” The bill required vehicle manufacturers to provide consumers, independent repair shops, and parts manufacturers access to “vehicle-generated data” and other “critical repair information and tools.”
The bill’s text explained that this is crucial to ensure competition in repairs and aftermarket parts as vehicles increasingly rely on sophisticated software systems and data-driven diagnostic tools. It also called for a committee to advise the FTC on motor vehicle aftermarket competition issues and effective enforcement. The bill died in committee with the end of the 2023-2024 legislative session.
National Defense Authorization Act 2025 – Members of both houses tried to include right to repair language in the 2025 budget for the Department of Defense. According to a letter sent by Senator Warren to defense contractor associations, “companies often restrict service members from repairing the equipment they rely on, and which [the Department of Defense] owns.”
The House version called for the Secretary of Defense to submit a report on competition and equipment repairs. And the Senate version sought to require that Department of Defense contracts guaranteed fair and reasonable access to all repair materials, including parts, tools, and information. However, neither amendment made it into the final law.
Though these federal efforts fell short, they may speak to a growing “legislative momentum” for the right to repair movement.
And the movement appears to have scored wins in the latest federal rulemaking for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (“DMCA”). This law contains an anti-circumvention provision which prohibits circumventing any “technological measure that effectively controls access to a” copyrighted work. Some right to repair advocates believe that this law enables manufacturers to “lock” access to embedded equipment software increasingly necessary for repairs.
Every three years the U.S. Copyright Office grants temporary, renewable exemptions to this law through a rulemaking process. The current rule went into effect October 2024 and renewed or expanded exemptions from the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision for “diagnosis, maintenance, or repair” across multiple industries: motor vehicles and boats; mechanized agricultural vehicles; commercial food preparation equipment (think McDonald’s ice cream machines); consumer electronics; and medical devices.
Some, including President Biden’s FTC and U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”), advocated for a general DMCA exemption for repairs that would reach a “broader class of software-enabled commercial and industrial devices.” But the 2024 rule specifically rejected a broader exemption, citing the “absence of a sufficient showing of adverse effects on the record” without one.
Bills in statehouses have had more success. Several states have recently passed right to repair legislation of their own, including Massachusetts, New York, Minnesota, Maine, California, Colorado, and most recently Oregon. Many more states (over 30 in 2023) are considering right to repair laws of their own.
The state laws on the books vary widely in scope. For instance, New York’s Digital Fair Repair Act requires manufacturers to provide “any documentation, parts, and tools required for the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of” “digital electronic equipment,” defined broadly as any product $10 or more “that depends for its functioning, in whole or in part, on digital electronics embedded in or attached to the product.” But the law giveth and taketh away—it also explicitly exempts motor vehicles, medical devices, farming equipment, other common industrial equipment, and home appliances from having to provide such information.
In contrast, Oregon’s law imposes similar requirements on manufacturers, but only for “consumer electronic equipment” that is “generally used for personal, family or household purposes.” The Beaver State’s law is unique in specifically prohibiting “parts pairing,” a practice where a device’s software recognizes unique component parts and only fully functions with manufacturer parts.
Passing a right to repair law and enforcing it are two different things. In Maine, 84 percent of voters approved the Automotive Right to Repair Law which allows car owners and independent repair shops access to vehicle data advocates say are crucial for repairs. The law promises to establish an “independent entity” that will “establish and administer access to vehicle-generated data.”
But just after it went into effect this year, a new lawsuit is challenging Maine’s ability to enforce it. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation filed a federal complaint to overturn the law on behalf of its members, America’s “leading car and light truck manufacturers.”
The Alliance claims that its members are liable for violating the law even though “a critical prerequisite for compliance”—an independent entity administering data access—“does not exist.” The Alliance argues further that without this “independent entity,” providing data access forces manufacturers to “remove vehicles’ cybersecurity protections” in violation of the federal Vehicle Safety Act.
For Maine and other states with right to repair laws, it is unclear what enforcement will look like, how the laws may conflict with federal law, and if we will see negative impacts claimed by manufacturers such as “disincentiviz[ing] future product development.”
III. Right to Repair under New Management—Continuity or Interruption?
With the changing administration, what should we expect to see regarding the right to repair movement? The Biden administration strongly supported the right to repair and sought to elevate it as an enforcement priority. In 2021, the FTC published its “Nixing the Fix” report where it examined “consumer protection and antitrust issues relating to repair restrictions” and promised to “pursue appropriate law enforcement and regulatory options” to address unlawful restrictions.
In 2022, the FTC brought three administrative actions under the FTC Act and MMWA against Harley-Davidson, the company behind Weber grills, and Westinghouse Electric—settling with each to improve customer access to independent repairs and parts. Biden’s antitrust enforcers also argued for a broader exemption to the DMCA for repairs. The DOJ filed a Statement of Interest supporting the private farmer classes against John Deere’s motion to dismiss. And, as discussed above, the FTC sued John Deere.
But this growing enthusiasm for the right to repair may not be a one-party conceit. Just above, we noted the bipartisan nature of recent federal legislative efforts to establish federal repair rights.
The enthusiasm is echoed by antitrust enforcers from both parties as well. In a 2021 policy statement, the FTC unanimously “determined that it will devote more enforcement resources to combat” and “prioritize investigations into unlawful repair restrictions.” The three administrative actions in 2022 also had unanimous Commissioner support.
The newly named FTC Chair, Andrew Ferguson, recently reiterated his support for right to repair policies. Though he dissented on filing the recent complaint against John Deere, he did so entirely on procedural grounds. His dissent expressed strong support for the right to repair movement and the FTC’s power to continue its advance.
The Trump administration’s leadership may also be receptive. While serving as Florida’s attorney general, Pam Bondi was an active antitrust enforcer suing manufacturers for price-fixing car parts and investigating poultry companies. President Trump himself took right to repair ideas out for a spin during his 2024 campaign—or shall we say, out for a “swirl”? So as President Trump’s second term starts to unfold, right to repair advocates may have reason to expect more and undoubtedly will push for more.
Conclusion
The right to repair movement has racked up wins with courts, legislatures, and policymakers. This momentum comes at a time when consumer products are only getting more complex—software, sensors, and other technologies are now routinely embedded in everyday items. That means the need for more and more specialized repairs is growing, too. Understanding how the law approaches repairs and related aftermarkets is more vital than ever. Whether we’ve seen enough to confidently say the right to repair ratchet will keep turning in one direction or slip back, recent developments show that this movement deserves serious attention from antitrust and intellectual property practitioners and policy makers. Watch for it.
