Three types of barriers to entry are discussed in this module, and one of those types is an illegal way for a firm to prevent competition. That specific barrier to entry is . Public utilities like the water company spend a lot of up-front resources to build the incredible piping infrastructure to provide water to residents. The more customers the water company has, the cheaper the average cost of providing that water, which makes it impractical for new firms to try to enter the water market. This type of barrier is called and the type of monopoly that the water company is classified as is a If a firm develops something unique and innovative, they can apply for a to prevent others from selling the new unique product for 20 years. If a monopoly is making economic profit in the short run, in the long run other firms cannot enter because of A firm in monopoly market structure has all the consumers, and therefore has a downward-sloping demand curve. This means that a monopoly is a since raising the price above market price does not necessarily result in losing all customers as in perfect competition. Getting a per-unit discount for