Reconsidering \u3cem\u3eIn re Technology Licensing Corporation\u3c/em\u3e and the Right to Jury Trial in Patent Invalidity Suits

Over the past decade, the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court have lessened the role of the jury in patent cases, both by classifying patent issues as questions of law for the judge, and by limiting the situations in which jury trial is available as of right. Recently, In re Technology Licensing Corporation, the Federal Circuit held that there is no right to a jury trial in a declaratory judgment action seeking a declaration of patent invalidity, where the defendant counterclaims with alleged infringement and seeks an injunction as the sole remedy. In line with Supreme Court precedent, the Technology Licensing majority applied a two-pronged historical analog test: (1) compare the statutory action to eighteenth-century actions from England, as they existed prior to the merger of the courts of law and equity; and (2) determine whether the remedy sought is legal or equitable in nature. Under the first prong, the Federal Circuit majority determined that the closest historical analog to the declaratory judgment action for patent invalidity was the inverted form of the action: a patent infringement suit where the defendant alleges patent invalidity. A review of eighteenth-century English patent law, however, in combination with a closer look at the nature of the present-day patent invalidity action, suggests that the writ of scire facias—a legal action-is a more appropriate historical analog to the declaratory judgment action for patent invalidity, and that the right to jury trial should therefore attach. At a minimum, the uncertainty as to what the appropriate analog might be suggests that the Federal Circuit should have followed the Supreme Court\u27s approach in Markman v. Westview Instruments. In Markman, the Court had recognized that there was no clear historical analog to patent claim construction, and therefore looked instead to functional considerations and policy concerns. Under that approach, the highly fact-intensive nature of patent invalidity issues dictates that the right to jury trial should be preserved

Reconsidering \u3cem\u3eIn re Technology Licensing Corporation\u3c/em\u3e and the Right to Jury Trial in Patent Invalidity Suits

Over the past decade, the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court have lessened the role of the jury in patent cases, both by classifying patent issues as questions of law for the judge, and by limiting the situations in which jury trial is available as of right. Recently, In re Technology Licensing Corporation, the Federal Circuit held that there is no right to a jury trial in a declaratory judgment action seeking a declaration of patent invalidity, where the defendant counterclaims with alleged infringement and seeks an injunction as the sole remedy. In line with Supreme Court precedent, the Technology Licensing majority applied a two-pronged historical analog test: (1) compare the statutory action to eighteenth-century actions from England, as they existed prior to the merger of the courts of law and equity; and (2) determine whether the remedy sought is legal or equitable in nature. Under the first prong, the Federal Circuit majority determined that the closest historical analog to the declaratory judgment action for patent invalidity was the inverted form of the action: a patent infringement suit where the defendant alleges patent invalidity. A review of eighteenth-century English patent law, however, in combination with a closer look at the nature of the present-day patent invalidity action, suggests that the writ of scire facias—a legal action-is a more appropriate historical analog to the declaratory judgment action for patent invalidity, and that the right to jury trial should therefore attach. At a minimum, the uncertainty as to what the appropriate analog might be suggests that the Federal Circuit should have followed the Supreme Court\u27s approach in Markman v. Westview Instruments. In Markman, the Court had recognized that there was no clear historical analog to patent claim construction, and therefore looked instead to functional considerations and policy concerns. Under that approach, the highly fact-intensive nature of patent invalidity issues dictates that the right to jury trial should be preserved

Generational spreading speed and the dynamics of population range expansion

Author Posting. © University of Chicago Press, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of University of Chicago Press for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in American Naturalist 186 (2015): 362-375, doi:10.1086/682276.Some of the most fundamental quantities in population ecology describe the growth and spread of populations. Population dynamics are often characterized by the annual rate of increase, λ, or the generational rate of increase, R0. Analyses involving R0 have deepened our understanding of disease dynamics and life-history complexities beyond that afforded by analysis of annual growth alone. While range expansion is quantified by the annual spreading speed, a spatial analog of λ, an R0-like expression for the rate of spread is missing. Using integrodifference models, we derive the appropriate generational spreading speed for populations with complex (stage-structured) life histories. The resulting measure, relevant to locations near the expanding edge of a (re)colonizing population, incorporates both local population growth and explicit spatial dispersal rather than solely growth across a population, as is the case for R0. The calculations for generational spreading speed are often simpler than those for annual spreading speed, and analytic or partial analytic solutions can yield insight into the processes that facilitate or slow a population’s spatial spread. We analyze the spatial dynamics of green crabs, sea otters, and teasel as examples to demonstrate the flexibility of our methods and the intuitive insights that they afford.Support for this work was provided, in part, by a postdoctoral fellowship (A.W.B.), Discovery Grants (M.K., M.A.L.), and an Accelerator Grant (M.A.L.) from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The material is based on work supported by the US National Science Foundation under grants DEB-1145017 and DEB-1257545 to M.G.N. M.A.L. also received support from the Canada Research Chair program and a Killam Research Fellowship.2016-08-0

Maternal, social and abiotic environmental effects on growth vary across life stages in a cooperative mammal.

Resource availability plays a key role in driving variation in somatic growth and body condition, and the factors determining access to resources vary considerably across life stages. Parents and carers may exert important influences in early life, when individuals are nutritionally dependent, with abiotic environmental effects having stronger influences later in development as individuals forage independently. Most studies have measured specific factors influencing growth across development or have compared relative influences of different factors within specific life stages. Such studies may not capture whether early-life factors continue to have delayed effects at later stages, or whether social factors change when individuals become nutritionally independent and adults become competitors for, rather than providers of, food. Here, we examined variation in the influence of the abiotic, social and maternal environment on growth across life stages in a wild population of cooperatively breeding meerkats. Cooperatively breeding vertebrates are ideal for investigating environmental influences on growth. In addition to experiencing highly variable abiotic conditions, cooperative breeders are typified by heterogeneity both among breeders, with mothers varying in age and social status, and in the number of carers present. Recent rainfall had a consistently marked effect on growth across life stages, yet other seasonal terms only influenced growth during stages when individuals were growing fastest. Group size and maternal dominance status had positive effects on growth during the period of nutritional dependence on carers, but did not influence mass at emergence (at 1 month) or growth at independent stages (>4 months). Pups born to older mothers were lighter at 1 month of age and subsequently grew faster as subadults. Males grew faster than females during the juvenile and subadult stage only. Our findings demonstrate the complex ways in which the external environment influences development in a cooperative mammal. Individuals are most sensitive to social and maternal factors during the period of nutritional dependence on carers, whereas direct environmental effects are relatively more important later in development. Understanding the way in which environmental sensitivity varies across life stages is likely to be an important consideration in predicting trait responses to environmental change

Importance of collection in gene set enrichment analysis of drug response in cancer cell lines

Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) associates gene sets and phenotypes, its use is predicated on the choice of a pre-defined collection of sets. The defacto standard implementation of GSEA provides seven collections yet there are no guidelines for the choice of collections and the impact of such choice, if any, is unknown. Here we compare each of the standard gene set collections in the context of a large dataset of drug response in human cancer cell lines. We define and test a new collection based on gene co-expression in cancer cell lines to compare the performance of the standard collections to an externally derived cell line based collection. The results show that GSEA findings vary significantly depending on the collection chosen for analysis. Henceforth, collections should be carefully selected and reported in studies that leverage GSEA

Generational Spreading Speed and the Dynamics of Population Range Expansion

abstract: Some of the most fundamental quantities in population ecology describe the growth and spread of populations. Population dynamics are often characterized by the annual rate of increase, l, or the generational rate of increase, R 0 . Analyses involving R 0 have deepened our understanding of disease dynamics and life-history complexities beyond that afforded by analysis of annual growth alone. While range expansion is quantified by the annual spreading speed, a spatial analog of l, an R 0 -like expression for the rate of spread is missing. Using integrodifference models, we derive the appropriate generational spreading speed for populations with complex (stage-structured) life histories. The resulting measure, relevant to locations near the expanding edge of a (re)colonizing population, incorporates both local population growth and explicit spatial dispersal rather than solely growth across a population, as is the case for R 0 . The calculations for generational spreading speed are often simpler than those for annual spreading speed, and analytic or partial analytic solutions can yield insight into the processes that facilitate or slow a population's spatial spread. We analyze the spatial dynamics of green crabs, sea otters, and teasel as examples to demonstrate the flexibility of our methods and the intuitive insights that they afford

Maternal, social and abiotic environment effects on growth vary across life stages in a cooperative mammal

1. Resource availability plays a key role in driving variation in somatic growth and body condition, and the factors determining access to resources vary considerably across life stages. Parents and carers may exert important influences in early life, when individuals are nutritionally dependent, with abiotic environmental effects having stronger influences later in development as individuals forage independently. 2. Most studies have measured specific factors influencing growth across development, or have compared relative influences of different factors within specific life stages. Such studies may not capture whether early-life factors continue have delayed effects at later stages, or if social factors change when individuals become nutritionally independent and adults become competitors for, rather than providers of, food. 3. Here, we examined variation in the influence of the abiotic, social and maternal environment on growth across life stages in a wild population of cooperatively breeding meerkats. Cooperatively breeding vertebrates are ideal for investigating environmental influences on growth. In addition to experiencing highly variable abiotic conditions, cooperative breeders are typified by heterogeneity both among breeders, with mothers varying in age and social status, and in the number of carers present.4. Recent rainfall had a consistently marked effect on growth across life stages, yet other seasonal terms only influenced growth during stages when individuals were growing fastest. Group size and maternal dominance status had positive effects on growth during the period of nutritional dependence on carers, yet did not influence mass at emergence (at one month) or growth at independent stages (>4 months). Pups born to older mothers were lighter at one month of age, and subsequently grew faster as subadults. Males grew faster than females during the juvenile and subadult stage only. 5. Our findings demonstrate the complex ways in which the external environment influences development in a cooperative mammal. Individuals are most sensitive to social and maternal factors during the period of nutritional dependence on carers whereas direct environmental effects are relatively more important later in development. Understanding the way in which environmental sensitivity varies across life stages is likely to be an important consideration in predicting trait responses to environmental change.Natural Environment Research Council (grant number PFZC092 to THCB).http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2656hb201

Detection of a glitch in the pulsar J1709-4429

We report the detection of a glitch event in the pulsar J1709$-$4429 (also known as B1706$-$44) during regular monitoring observations with the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (UTMOST). The glitch was found during timing operations, in which we regularly observe over 400 pulsars with up to daily cadence, while commensally searching for Rotating Radio Transients, pulsars, and FRBs. With a fractional size of $\Delta\nu/\nu \approx 52.4 \times10^{-9}$, the glitch reported here is by far the smallest known for this pulsar, attesting to the efficacy of glitch searches with high cadence using UTMOST.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figur

Chloroplasts alter their morphology and accumulate at the pathogen interface during infection by Phytophthora infestans

Upon immune activation, chloroplasts switch off photosynthesis, produce antimicrobial compounds and associate with the nucleus through tubular extensions called stromules. Although it is well established that chloroplasts alter their position in response to light, little is known about the dynamics of chloroplast movement in response to pathogen attack. Here, we report that during infection with the Irish potato famine pathogen Phytophthora infestans, chloroplasts accumulate at the pathogen interface, associating with the specialized membrane that engulfs the pathogen haustorium. The chemical inhibition of actin polymerization reduces the accumulation of chloroplasts at pathogen haustoria, suggesting that this process is partially dependent on the actin cytoskeleton. However, chloroplast accumulation at haustoria does not necessarily rely on movement of the nucleus to this interface and is not affected by light conditions. Stromules are typically induced during infection, embracing haustoria and facilitating chloroplast interactions, to form dynamic organelle clusters. We found that infection-triggered stromule formation relies on BRASSINOSTEROID INSENSITIVE 1-ASSOCIATED KINASE 1 (BAK1)-mediated surface immune signaling, whereas chloroplast repositioning towards haustoria does not. Consistent with the defense-related induction of stromules, effector-mediated suppression of BAK1-mediated immune signaling reduced stromule formation during infection. On the other hand, immune recognition of the same effector stimulated stromules, presumably via a different pathway. These findings implicate chloroplasts in a polarized response upon pathogen attack and point to more complex functions of these organelles in plant–pathogen interactions.Fil: Savage, Zachary. Imperial College London; Reino UnidoFil: Duggan, Cian. Imperial College London; Reino UnidoFil: Toufexi, Alexia. Imperial College London; Reino UnidoFil: Pandey, Pooja. Imperial College London; Reino UnidoFil: Liang, Yuxi. Imperial College London; Reino UnidoFil: Segretin, Maria Eugenia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres"; ArgentinaFil: Yuen, Lok Him. Imperial College London; Reino UnidoFil: Gaboriau, David C. A.. Imperial College London; Reino UnidoFil: Leary, Alexandre Y.. Imperial College London; Reino UnidoFil: Tumtas, Yasin. Imperial College London; Reino UnidoFil: Khandare, Virendrasinh. Imperial College London; Reino UnidoFil: Ward, Andrew D.. Science and Technology Facilities Council; Reino UnidoFil: Botchway, Stanley W.. Science and Technology Facilities Council; Reino UnidoFil: Bateman, Benji C.. Science and Technology Facilities Council; Reino UnidoFil: Pan, Indranil. Alan Turing Institute; Reino Unido. Imperial College London; Reino UnidoFil: Schattat, Martin. Martin Luther Universitat Halle-Wittenberg; AlemaniaFil: Sparkes, Imogen. University of Bristol; Reino UnidoFil: Bozkurt, Osman Tolga. Imperial College London; Reino Unid