3,289 research outputs found
Standing with a Bundle of Sticks: The All Substantial Rights Doctrine in Action
This Article provides an overview of the Federal Circuit’s all substantial rights doctrine. Surveying decades of case law, this Article seeks to clarify this confusing area of the law and set out the essential rules for those engaged in patent licensing, patent assignment, and patent litigation. This Article begins by explaining why effective ownership of a patent is critical to standing, and then describes the framework through which courts determine whether a party is, in fact, in possession of all substantial rights and is therefore the effective owner. While there are many factors that courts may consider, certain rights take priority in this analysis, the right to enforce being the most important. This Article concludes by providing guidance on how to structure an agreement to ensure that these rights are allocated predictably and reliably to convey effective ownership of the patent
Topological persistence and dynamical heterogeneities near jamming
We introduce topological methods for quantifying spatially heterogeneous
dynamics, and use these tools to analyze particle-tracking data for a
quasi-two-dimensional granular system of air-fluidized beads on approach to
jamming. In particular we define two overlap order parameters, which quantify
the correlation between particle configurations at different times, based on a
Voronoi construction and the persistence in the resulting cells and nearest
neighbors. Temporal fluctuations in the decay of the persistent area and bond
order parameters define two alternative dynamic four-point susceptibilities,
XA(t) and XB(t), well-suited for characterizing spatially-heterogeneous
dynamics. These are analogous to the standard four-point dynamic susceptibility
X4(l,t), but where the space-dependence is fixed uniquely by topology rather
than by discretionary choice of cutoff function. While these three
susceptibilities yield characteristic time scales that are somewhat different,
they give domain sizes for the dynamical heterogeneities that are in good
agreement and that diverge on approach to jamming
The partition of energy for air-fluidized grains
The dynamics of one and two identical spheres rolling in a nearly-levitating
upflow of air obey the Langevin Equation and the Fluctuation-Dissipation
Relation [Ojha et al. Nature 427, 521 (2004) and Phys. Rev. E 71, 01631
(2005)]. To probe the range of validity of this statistical mechanical
description, we perturb the original experiments in four ways. First, we break
the circular symmetry of the confining potential by using a stadium-shaped
trap, and find that the velocity distributions remain circularly symmetric.
Second, we fluidize multiple spheres of different density, and find that all
have the same effective temperature. Third, we fluidize two spheres of
different size, and find that the thermal analogy progressively fails according
to the size ratio. Fourth, we fluidize individual grains of aspherical shape,
and find that the applicability of statistical mechanics depends on whether or
not the grain chatters along its length, in the direction of airflow.Comment: experimen
Data-driven and Model-based Verification: a Bayesian Identification Approach
This work develops a measurement-driven and model-based formal verification
approach, applicable to systems with partly unknown dynamics. We provide a
principled method, grounded on reachability analysis and on Bayesian inference,
to compute the confidence that a physical system driven by external inputs and
accessed under noisy measurements, verifies a temporal logic property. A case
study is discussed, where we investigate the bounded- and unbounded-time safety
of a partly unknown linear time invariant system
Observer-based correct-by-design controller synthesis
Current state-of-the-art correct-by-design controllers are designed for
full-state measurable systems. This work first extends the applicability of
correct-by-design controllers to partially observable LTI systems. Leveraging
2nd order bounds we give a design method that has a quantifiable robustness to
probabilistic disturbances on state transitions and on output measurements. In
a case study from smart buildings we evaluate the new output-based
correct-by-design controller on a physical system with limited sensor
information
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