Walking the Line: Why the Presumption Against Extraterritorial Application of U.S. Patent Law Should Limit the Reach of 35 U.S.C. § 271(f)

The advent of the digital era and the global market pose unique challenges to intellectual property law. To adapt, U.S. patent laws require constant interpretation in the face of rapidly changing technological advances. In AT&T Corp. v. Microsoft Corp., the Federal Circuit interpreted 35 U.S.C. § 271(f) in a technology-dependent manner in order to effectuate the purpose of the law with respect to global software distribution. However, the Federal Circuit failed to consider the presumption against extraterritorial application of U.S. law, and its decision now risks international discord and harm not only to the American software industry, but other U.S. industries as well. This iBrief critiques the lower court decisions in AT&T Corp. v. Microsoft Corp. in light of the presumption against extraterritoriality, and analyzes how the Supreme Court should apply the presumption in its review of the case

Pleasure

The history of the political thought on pleasure is not a cloistered affair in which scholars only engage one another. In political thought, one commonly finds a critical engagement with the wider public and the ruling classes, which are both perceived to be dangerously hedonistic. The effort of many political thinkers is directed towards showing that other political ends are more worthy than pleasure: Plato battles vigorously against Calicles' pleasure seeking in the Gorgias, Augustine argues in The City of God against the human tendency to hedonism in favor of a profound distrust of pleasure, and even Machiavelli claims in The Prince that it is in the prince's best interest to separate his pursuit of pleasure from his pursuit of political power. The thrust of the majority of political thought is to interrupt the popular equation that links pleasure with the good. Instead, political thought has largely followed Plato's lead and has worked to contain hedonism on two fronts. First, pleasure is rigorously separated from ethical and political good: what is good is not identical with what is pleasurable even if the two sometimes overlap. Second, even where the pursuit of pleasure is judged to be coincident with the good, pleasure should only be pursued to the degree it is rational to do so and pursued in the most rational way. Of course, it is not true that all thinkers hold to these two positions on pleasure. Epicureanism and utilitarianism are two major schools of thought that challenge the first precept equating pleasure with the good. Both Epicureanism and utilitarianism argue that the only good is pleasure. However, it is much less frequently that one finds a thinker challenging the second Platonic position that reason must master and guide our pursuit of pleasure—even the Epicureans and utilitarians believe that pleasure is best pursued rationally. However, Foucault has attracted recent attention by challenging the idea that reason should dominate the pursuit of pleasure

Mr. Robot – Part One: ‘Our Democracy has been hacked’ – Critiquing Mr. Robot

It was noted in the previous post, that the underlying plotline structuring Sam Esmail’s Mr. Robot bears a notable resemblance to David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999). Certainly, the comparison has been duly noted and even openly acknowledged by Esmail, with the film serving as inspiration for the series (Sullivan, 2015). In the case of seasons 1 and 2, this inspiration fuels Elliot and fsociety’s attempts to erase the commercial debt that has been accumulated by E Corp. Lines from the characters are riddled with references to the increasing divide between rich and poor, and to the declining significance of democracy in the face of a social and political climate steered by liberal capitalism’s unending and unequal pursuit of wealth. As noted, these ills are embodied in the conglomerate E Corp, or, as Elliot refers to it, ‘Evil Corp’. E Corp can be thought of as a reflection of Apple, with its technology, digital payment services and loan/credit portfolios always encroaching on the lives of the series’ characters. Accordingly, while The Narrator in Fight Club seeks to bring down capitalism, by exploding the headquarters of its leading companies, Elliot seeks to reset the balance by hacking E Corp’s computer database and eradicating the consumer debt it holds. ... Read more – https://cstonline.net/mr-robot-part-one-our- democracy-has-been-hacked-critiquing-mr-robot-by-jack-black

Tying Arrangements and the Computer Industry: Digidyne Corp. v. Data General Corp.

V diskurzu umění nových médií se setkáváme s nadprodukcí pojmenování této umělecké praxe. Produkce neologismů je pro tuto disciplínu natolik specifická, že můžeme mluvit o tekuté identitě diskurzu nových médií. Příspěvek je věnován specifikaci pojmu softwarové umění ve vztahu k jiným označením umění využívajícího digitální média, konkrétně počítačové umění a počítačem generované umění. Softwarové umění představíme jako disciplínu propojující matematické, poetické a metafyzické chápání komputace (A. Lovelace), jako diskurz osvobozující software z logiky čisté funkcionality ve prospěch jeho metaforické funkce (A. Turing), a jako uměleckou tvorbu zkoumající limity lidské i strojové racionality a imaginace, kterou můžeme nazvat extrémní programování nebo programování excesu.In the discourse of new media art, we meet with overproduction of terms for the artistic practice. Production of neologisms is so characteristic for this discipline that we can talk about fluid identity of new media discourse. The paper is devoted to the specification of the concept of software art in relation to other terms referring to the digital media arts, specifically computer art and computer generated art. The software art will be presented as a discipline that links mathematical, poetic and metaphysical understanding of computation (A. Lovelace), as discourse, whose ambition is to free software from logic of pure functionality in favor of its metaphorical function (A. Turing), and as a creative activity exploring the limits of human and mechanic rationality and imagination in the forms of activities that can be called extreme programming, or programming of excess

A review of high-efficiency silicon solar cells

Various parameters that affect solar cell efficiency were discussed. It is not understood why solar cells produced from less expensive Czochralski (Cz) silicon are less efficient than cells fabricated from more expensive float-zone (Fz) silicon. Performance characteristics were presented for recently produced, high-efficient solar cells fabricated by Westinghouse Electric Corp., Spire Corp., University of New South Wales, and Stanford University

Kinetics of the Photoreduction of \u3cem\u3ep\u3c/em\u3e-nitrobenzoic Acid on Ag and AgxAu1-x Nanoparticle Films

A recent strategy to increase the efficiency of photovoltaic and photoemissive devices has been to include metal nanolayers in contact with an organic layer inside these devices. Metal nanoparticles (especially Ag and Au) are known to catalyze photoreactions of organic molecules on their surfaces. The reactivity of organics at nanometal surfaces has implications for device lifetimes; therefore, it is important to understand how nanoparticle size and composition influence reaction rates. The photoreduction of p-nitrobenzoate (PNBA) to p,p’-azodibenzoate (PPADBA) on Ag nanoparticles is an excellent model system for studying such reactions. We have measured the reaction rate of PNBA to PPADBA on Ag and Au based nanoparticle surfaces using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). SERS is a highly sensitive spectroscopic tool, which provides molecular fingerprints that can be used to identify molecular species present on metal nanoparticle surfaces. These surfaces are made from layers from Ag and AgxAu1-x alloy nanoparticles with diameters ranging from 50-80 nm

Limits to sustained energy intake XII : is the poor relation between resting metabolic rate and reproductive performance because resting metabolism is not a repeatable trait?

Peer reviewedPublisher PD