The Political Economy of the Research Exemption in American Patent Law

This Article approaches the research exemption, and related legal developments, as a case study in the political economy of patent law. Part I recounts the history of the research exemption, touching briefly on historical origins but emphasizing developments since the 1970s in legislative, executive, and judicial forums. It also examines changes during the same time frame in related areas of patent law, like the Bayh-Dole legislation and the attempted repeal of state immunity from patent infringement liability. These legal developments indirectly affected the research exemption, or implicated similar concerns about imbalance in the patent system and the use of patents to tax, control, or inhibit research activity. Part II analyzes this history to illustrate and expand upon two major themes in the political economy of patent law, namely the surprising persistence of faulty economic ideology in patent policymaking and the institutional bias exhibited by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in shaping modern patent law. One major conclusion is that together these forces have created an excessively complex and ill-designed policy environment that is placing a significant strain on the national research system, a strain that executive agencies and the courts have tried to alleviate through ad hoc agreements and modifications of other patent doctrines, like the doctrine of subject matter eligibility

The Political Economy of the Research Exemption in American Patent Law

This Article approaches the research exemption, and related legal developments, as a case study in the political economy of patent law. Part I recounts the history of the research exemption, touching briefly on historical origins but emphasizing developments since the 1970s in legislative, executive, and judicial forums. It also examines changes during the same time frame in related areas of patent law, like the Bayh-Dole legislation and the attempted repeal of state immunity from patent infringement liability. These legal developments indirectly affected the research exemption, or implicated similar concerns about imbalance in the patent system and the use of patents to tax, control, or inhibit research activity. Part II analyzes this history to illustrate and expand upon two major themes in the political economy of patent law, namely the surprising persistence of faulty economic ideology in patent policymaking and the institutional bias exhibited by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in shaping modern patent law. One major conclusion is that together these forces have created an excessively complex and ill-designed policy environment that is placing a significant strain on the national research system, a strain that executive agencies and the courts have tried to alleviate through ad hoc agreements and modifications of other patent doctrines, like the doctrine of subject matter eligibility

Procedure and layout for the development of a fatigue test on an agricultural implement by a four poster test bench

The increasing demand in agricultural vehicles’ power requirements, payloads and driving speeds increases issues related to tractors and farm implements exposure to solicitations. One of the main factors to be taken into account for fatigue test developing on agricultural machines is the heterogeneity of the environment and activity in which the tractor operates. In particular, for contractors the use in transport conditions both on terrain and road becomes important. As far as transport is concerned. factors mainly affecting solicitations on carried implement are soil profile roughness, tractor settings and forward speed. In this paper, CRA-ING laboratory of Treviglio, Italy, together with Frandent Group s.r.l. (Osasco, Italy), analyse the possibility of creating a solicitation profile by means of one four poster test bench for fatigue test on a carried implement simulating transport conditions. Accelerations at the hubs of the tractor were acquired during transport on terrain and reproduced with one electro-hydraulic four posters test bench on one dummy of a tractor developed for carrying the implement. Artificial bumps were mathematically created and introduced in the time history to simulate squares solicitations. Twelve hours of test were carried out. This experience confirmed the possibility of carrying out laboratory fatigue test on agricultural implements by reproducing specific field conditions solicitations with four poster test bench

A Metadesign Theory for Tailorable Decision Support

Despite years of decision support systems (DSS) research, DSS artifacts are frequently criticized for lacking practitioner relevance and for neglecting configurability and contextual dynamism. Tailoring in end-user contexts can produce relevant emergent DSS artifacts, but design theory for this is lacking. Design science research (DSR) has important implications for improving DSS uptake, but generally this has not been promoted in the form of metadesigns with design principles applicable to other DSS developments. This paper describes a metadesign theory for tailorable DSS, generated through action design research studies in different primary industries. Design knowledge from a DSS developed in an agricultural domain was distilled and generalized into a design theory comprising: (1) a general solution concept (metadesign), and (2) five hypothesized design principles. These were then instantiated via a second development in which the metadesign and design principles were applied in a different domain (forestry) to produce a successful DSS, thus testing the metadesign and validating the design principles. In addition to contributing to DSR and illustrating innovation in tailorable technology, the paper demonstrates the utility of action design research to support theory development in DSS design

Outdoor navigation of mobile robots

AGVs in the manufacturing industry currently constitute the largest application area for mobile robots. Other applications have been gradually emerging, including various transporting tasks in demanding environments, such as mines or harbours. Most of the new potential applications require a free-ranging navigation system, which means that the path of a robot is no longer bound to follow a buried inductive cable. Moreover, changing the route of a robot or taking a new working area into use must be as effective as possible. These requirements set new challenges for the navigation systems of mobile robots. One of the basic methods of building a free ranging navigation system is to combine dead reckoning navigation with the detection of beacons at known locations. This approach is the backbone of the navigation systems in this study. The study describes research and development work in the area of mobile robotics including the applications in forestry, agriculture, mining, and transportation in a factory yard. The focus is on describing navigation sensors and methods for position and heading estimation by fusing dead reckoning and beacon detection information. A Kalman filter is typically used here for sensor fusion. Both cases of using either artificial or natural beacons have been covered. Artificial beacons used in the research and development projects include specially designed flat objects to be detected using a camera as the detection sensor, GPS satellite positioning system, and passive transponders buried in the ground along the route of a robot. The walls in a mine tunnel have been used as natural beacons. In this case, special attention has been paid to map building and using the map for positioning. The main contribution of the study is in describing the structure of a working navigation system, including positioning and position control. The navigation system for mining application, in particular, contains some unique features that provide an easy-to-use procedure for taking new production areas into use and making it possible to drive a heavy mining machine autonomously at speed comparable to an experienced human driver.reviewe