Mutating Marks: Refusing to Lose the Trademark Trail

This article examines and synthesizes several criticisms underlying the expansion of trademark rights, and the sometimes irrational results thereof. The abandonment of trademark law’s foundations, in particular categories of marks, is illustrated most saliently where marks have been allowed to encapsulate meaning and value in and of themselves, unattributable to any qualities or connections to product or source. This touches on, and bridges the gap, between areas which have received academic attention for their problematic evolutions, including naked licensing, strike suits, cultural and particularly sports-centric marks, and sensory marks. Trademark doctrines such as the consumer perception for confusion, and the spectrum of distinction, used to grant and organize marks, are discussed. This allows us to consider how to reinvigorate commitment to essential trademark jurisprudence. The first Section reviews a few fundamental concepts underlying and organizing the trademark system, in order to explain where its boundaries belong. Sections II and III detail different considerations that emerged in step with the expansion of a trademark’s purpose far beyond that of a source signifier. They address matters, such as inherent goodwill, that have been largely ignored to the detriment of the public interest, and others, such as functionality, that have not been applied to their full, logical extent. Section IV discusses the influence mark holders have had in shaping this progression—one of lowering requirements and escalating powers—and it considers the unreasonable consequences thereof. Finally, Section V indicates how courts and regulatory agencies may bring a significant portion of the trademarks, which have gone awry, back into the fold. Estoppel and a reconstituting of stronger evidentiary standards can help to ensure powerful mark holders seeking legal support for their market dominance actually meet high burdens to do so. The current trademark law framework leaves too much power in some mark holders’ hands, but it contains the seeds for innovative parties and lawyers to create more sensible trademark policies

The Butcher-Oemler Effect in High Redshift X-ray Selected Clusters

We are engaged in a wide-field, multi-colour imaging survey of X-ray selected clusters at intermediate and high redshift. We present blue fractions for the first 8 out of 29 clusters, covering almost a factor of 100 in X-ray luminosity. We find no correlation of blue fraction with redshift or X-ray luminosity. The lack of a correlation with L$_{X}$, places strong constraints on the importance of ram-pressure stripping as a driver of the Butcher-Oemler effect.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be puplished in the proceedings of the ''Sesto 2001-Tracing Cosmic Evolution with Galaxy Clusters'', Sesto 3-6 July 2001, Italy, eds, Stefano Borgan

Initial Report on the Geology of the Northeastern Part of the New Braunfels, Texas

This brief report describes initial progress on geologic mapping and paleontologic studies that are being conducted in the vicinity of New Braunfels, Texas. The primary objective of this work is to produce an accurate geologic map that will be printed on the new 1:100,000-scale map of the New Braunfels, Texas, 30 X 60 minute quadrangle, which is in preparation by the U.S. Geological Survey. A planimetric version has been printed, but the final topographic map is not yet available. Our initial mapping has been completed on 1:24,000-scale topographic maps and is intended for compilation at 1:100,000-scale. Partial funding for the second year of the study has been approved. Work during year two will continue the mapping into quadrangles adjacent to those mapped in year one. Paleontologic work by Dr. Will Elder will continue as part of the in-kind contribution by the U.S. Geological Survey to this effort. Dr. E. G. Wermund has described this project to several groups for whom the geology of this area is of interest. Draft copies of the mapping accomplished to date have been given to the Edwards Underground Water District, potentially for entry by them into a GIS, and copies will be made available to other interested parties as requested. In addition, the South Texas Geological Society has passed a resolution commending this initiative, supporting this new mapping effort, and offering the help of their membership.Bureau of Economic Geolog

Measurements of the Diffuse Ultraviolet Background and the Terrestrial Airglow with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph

Far-UV observations in and near the Hubble Deep Fields demonstrate that the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) can potentially obtain unique and precise measurements of the diffuse far-ultraviolet background. Although STIS is not the ideal instrument for such measurements, high-resolution images allow Galactic and extragalactic objects to be masked to very faint magnitudes, thus ensuring a measurement of the truly diffuse UV signal. The programs we have analyzed were not designed for this scientific purpose, but would be sufficient to obtain a very sensitive measurement if it were not for a weak but larger-than-expected signal from airglow in the STIS 1450-1900 A bandpass. Our analysis shows that STIS far-UV crystal quartz observations taken near the limb during orbital day can detect a faint airglow signal, most likely from NI\1493, that is comparable to the dark rate and inseparable from the far-UV background. Discarding all but the night data from these datasets gives a diffuse far-ultraviolet background measurement of 501 +/- 103 ph/cm2/sec/ster/A, along a line of sight with very low Galactic neutral hydrogen column (N_HI = 1.5E20 cm-2) and extinction (E(B-V)=0.01 mag). This result is in good agreement with earlier measurements of the far-UV background, and should not include any significant contribution from airglow. We present our findings as a warning to other groups who may use the STIS far-UV camera to observe faint extended targets, and to demonstrate how this measurement may be properly obtained with STIS.Comment: 7 pages, Latex. 4 figures. Uses corrected version of emulateapj.sty and apjfonts.sty (included). Accepted for publication in A

Real-Time Optimization of Anti-Reflective Coatings for CIGS Solar Cells

A new method combining in-situ real-time spectroscopic ellipsometry and optical modeling to optimize the thickness of an anti-reflective (AR) coating for Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) solar cells is described and applied directly to fabricate devices. The model is based on transfer matrix theory with input from the accurate measurement of complex dielectric function spectra and thickness of each layer in the solar cell by spectroscopic ellipsometry. The AR coating thickness is optimized in real time to optically enhance device performance with varying thickness and properties of the constituent layers. Among the parameters studied, we notably demonstrate how changes in thickness of the CIGS absorber layer, buffer layers, and transparent contact layer of higher performance solar cells affect the optimized AR coating thickness. An increase in the device performance of up to 6% with the optimized AR layer is demonstrated, emphasizing the importance of designing the AR coating based on the properties of the device structure

The VISTA Science Archive

We describe the VISTA Science Archive (VSA) and its first public release of data from five of the six VISTA Public Surveys. The VSA exists to support the VISTA Surveys through their lifecycle: the VISTA Public Survey consortia can use it during their quality control assessment of survey data products before submission to the ESO Science Archive Facility (ESO SAF); it supports their exploitation of survey data prior to its publication through the ESO SAF; and, subsequently, it provides the wider community with survey science exploitation tools that complement the data product repository functionality of the ESO SAF. This paper has been written in conjunction with the first public release of public survey data through the VSA and is designed to help its users understand the data products available and how the functionality of the VSA supports their varied science goals. We describe the design of the database and outline the database-driven curation processes that take data from nightly pipeline-processed and calibrated FITS files to create science-ready survey datasets. Much of this design, and the codebase implementing it, derives from our earlier WFCAM Science Archive (WSA), so this paper concentrates on the VISTA-specific aspects and on improvements made to the system in the light of experience gained in operating the WSA.Comment: 22 pages, 16 figures. Minor edits to fonts and typos after sub-editting. Published in A&