A situation in which a single company owns all or nearly all of the market for...

The exclusive power, or privilege of selling a commodity; the exclusive power, right, or privilege of dealing in some article, or of trading in some market; sole command of the traffic in anything, however obtained; as, the proprietor of a patented article is given a monopoly of its sale for a limited time; chartered trading companies have sometimes had a monopoly of trade with remote regions; a combination of traders may get a monopoly of a particular product.

Exclusive possession; as, a monopoly of land.

The commodity or other material thing to which the monopoly relates; as, tobacco is a monopoly in France.

a business that has no competition

a bad thing, particularly when it came about through unfair competition," he said, referring to Microsoft's practice of distributing their web browser with their operating system

an entity which can coercively forbid its own competition

Monopoly defines a situation where a company has no competition allowing it to fix prices and usually they have policies that are intended to preserve that power and exclude competition.

a far greater hindrance to innovation than simply allowing information to enter the public domain

a mixed blessing because it takes the emphasis off innovation

a situation where the free market ultimately led to dominance by one large firm either through luck, innovation, and savvy or illegal business practices