Meanwhile, other countries are spending more on research, taking some of the glory that America once monopolized.

Its rivals CNPC and Sinopec have recently been granted approval to conduct offshore explorations once monopolized by CNOOC Limited.

The arrival of television brought an identity crisis for the medium that once monopolized in-home electronic entertainment.

The plan called for allowing new companies to sell power in territories once monopolized by the local utilities.

It was the type of situation that Dave Righetti once monopolized, when he was the unquestioned closer of the Yankee bullpen.

Trade paperbacks also compete now for reprint rights to best-selling fiction, a segment of the industry once monopolized by mass-market paperbacks.

It is, I admit, a little hard to celebrate status when those who once monopolized it - the blue-blood aristocracy - gave it such a bad name.

Furthermore, to appease their own unemployed populations, gulf leaders have adopted "indegenization" policies, reserving jobs once monopolized by Indians for Arabs.

The switch to New Year's Day in 1982 created an uninvited guest among the Big Four that once monopolized the day.

Her appointment to her new job, by Sandy Grushow, chairman of the Fox Television Entertainment Group, came at a significant moment for a network that once monopolized the teenage and young-adult audiences.