Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as a new IP strategy in the fashion industry

Szczyt klimatyczny COP24 zorganizowany w Katowicach w grudniu 2018 r. stał się przyczynkiem do debaty nad zmianami klimatycznymi. Jako godne odnotowania należy przyjąć to, że jedną z branż, które podjęły rozmowę i działania jest branża modowa. Przyjęcie Karty Działań Przemysłu Modowego na rzecz Klimatu w ramach COP24 zapoczątkowało proces integrowania się sektora modowego wokół idei ochrony klimatu. Rozwinięcie i dalsza konkretyzacja celów Karty nastąpi w pracach 6 grup roboczych, a pierwsze spotkanie grup roboczych zostanie zwołane przez UN Climate Change na początku 2019 r. Realizacja coraz bardziej rygorystycznych wymagań dotyczących warunków korzystania ze środowiska przez przemysł stanowi dla przedsiębiorców duże wyzwanie finansowe, organizacyjne i logistyczne. Z drugiej strony, prawidłowe zaplanowanie i przeprowadzenie procesu dostosowania funkcjonowania przedsiębiorstwa do nowych uwarunkowań prawnych, technicznych i technologicznych w celu sprostania wymaganiom ochrony środowiska, może okazać się dużą szansą na uzyskanie lub zwiększenie przewagi konkurencyjnej, nie tylko na lokalnym, czy regionalnym, ale często również na światowym rynku. Dostosowanie parametrów funkcjonowania linii produkcyjnej do nowych regulacji dotyczących ochrony środowiska wymaga znacznego ulepszenia istniejącej, a w wielu przypadkach pozyskania całkowicie nowej technologii. Tę z kolei chronić mogą różne prawa własności intelektualnej. Powyższe wyzwania dotykają w coraz większym stopniu także przemysłu modowego. Również w tej branży styk regulacji dotyczących ochrony środowiska z systemem ochrony własności intelektualnej okazuje się znacznie ściślejszy, niż mogłoby się z pozoru wydawać. Znajomość prawa własności intelektualnej przez światowe marki nie zapewnia międzynarodowego sukcesu. Wynika on raczej z umiejętności stosowania nabytej wiedzy w powiązaniu prawa z psychologią sprzedaży i marketingu, czyli tzw. strategii IP. Strategie są liczne, bardzo zróżnicowane i w coraz większym stopniu wychodzą naprzeciw współczesnym wyzwaniom klimatycznym.The COP24 climate summit organized in Katowice in December 2018 has contributed to the debate on climate change. Noteworthy is the fact that one of the industries having taken up the conversation and activities is the fashion industry. The adoption of the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action under COP24 initiated the process of orchestrating the fashion sector around the idea of climate protection. Development and further substantiation of the Charter's goals will take place inside six working groups, the first meeting of which will be convened by UN Climate Change in early 2019. The implementation of increasingly stringent requirements regarding environmental management conditions for industry represents a great financial, organizational and logistical challenge for entrepreneurs. On the other hand, proper planning and the process of adapting a company’s operations to new legal, technical and technological conditions to meet environmental protection requirements may be a good chance to gain or increase competitive advantage, not only on a local or regional level, but also frequently on the global market. Adjustment of production line operation parameters to new regulations regarding environmental protection requires significant improvement of existing technology or, in many cases, complete replacement. The updated operation can, in turn, benefit from protection of various intellectual property rights. The above challenges, applicable to any business, have the potential to affect significantly the fashion industry in particular. Here, too, the intersection of environment protection regulatory frameworks and the intellectual property protection system turns out to be much stronger than one might expect. Knowledge by global brands of intellectual property rights does not ensure international success. Rather, it results from the ability to apply the acquired knowledge by linking the law with the psychology of sales and marketing, i.e. through IP strategies. There is a multitude of such strategies and many increasingly address the contemporary climate challenges

Piperidinium and Pyrrolidinium Ionic Liquids as Precursors in the Synthesis of New Platinum Catalysts for Hydrosilylation

Six new air-stable anionic platinum complexes were synthesized in simple reactions of piperidinium [BMPip]Cl or pyrrolidinium [BMPyrr]Cl ionic liquids with platinum compounds ([Pt(cod)Cl2] or K2[PtCl6]). All these compounds were subjected to isolation and spectrometric characterization using NMR and ESI-MS techniques. Furthermore, the determination of melting points and thermal stability of the above derivatives was performed with the use of thermogravimetric analysis. The catalytic performance of the synthesized complexes was tested in hydrosilylation of 1-octene and allyl glycidyl ether with 1,1,1,3,5,5,5-heptamethyltrisiloxane. The study has shown that they have high catalytic activity and are insoluble in the reaction medium which enabled them to isolate and reuse them in consecutive catalytic cycles. The most active complex [BMPip]2[PtCl6] makes it possible to conduct at least 10 catalytic runs without losing activity which makes it an attractive alternative not only to commonly used homogeneous catalysts, but also to heterogeneous catalysts for hydrosilylation processes. The activity of the studied catalysts is also affected by the kind of anion and, to some extent, the kind of cation

Catalysis of hydrosilylation processes with the participation of ionic liquids

Hydrosilylation is a fundamental and elegant method for the laboratory and industrial synthesis of organosilicon compounds. The hydrosilylation reaction is usually performed in a single-phase homogeneous system. A major problem, particularly in homogeneous catalysis, is the separation of catalyst from the reaction mixture. The presence of metals in the reaction products, even in trace quantities, is unacceptable for many applications, therefore efforts have been made at applying heterogeneous catalysts or immobilised metal complexes in order to obtain high catalytic activity and easy product isolation at the same time. One of the methods for producing such catalysts is the employment of ionic liquids as agents for the immobilization of metal complexes. Biphasic catalysis in a liquid-liquid system is an ideal approach through which to combine the advantages of both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis. The ionic liquids (ILs) generally form the phase in which the catalyst is dissolved and immobilized. In our research we have obtained a number of catalytic systems of such a type which were based on rhodium and platinum complexes dissolved in phosphonium, imidazolium, pyridinium and ammonium liquids. Currently, there has a common trend to obtain heterogenized systems that combine advantages of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, which makes the hydrosilylation process more cost- effective. Such integration of homo- and heterogeneous catalysts is realized in several variants, as supported IL phase catalysts (SILPC) and solid catalysts with ILs layer (SCILL). Although all the above systems show high catalytic activities, their structure is unknown. This is why we have made attempts to modify selected ionic liquids (corresponding to our most effective systems) and we have applied them as ligands in the synthesis of platinum and rhodium complexes. Another group of catalysts comprises anionic complexes of rhodium and platinum which were obtained by reactions between halide complexes of metals and a respective ionic liquid. Most of the obtained complexes are solids insoluble in hydrosilylation reagents and are characterized by a high catalytic activity. A considerable development of heterogeneous catalysts of this type and their application in many hydrosilylation processes can be expected in the future. This mini-review briefly describes the recent progress in the design and development of catalysts based on the presence of ionic liquids and their applications for hydrosilylation processes

Grammatical gender and stereotypical gender associations with inanimate nouns in the ‘Germanic sandwich’

This pilot study is a contribution to the theoretical debate on the impact language has on general cognition. More specifically, we applied a Word Sketch collocator (an innovative NLP tool operating on large-scale corpora) to collect human adjective collocations of masculine, feminine, and neuter inanimate nouns in German, Dutch, and English to see whether there is a correlation between the grammatical genders of inanimate nouns and the adjective collocations most frequently used to describe those nouns. Later, in a series of online questionnaires, we examined the impact of grammatical gender and stereotypical gender associations on the perception of inanimate nouns (e.g., street, lamp, bottle) by testing the gender associations of their human adjective collocations obtained from the Word Sketch collocator in German (a grammatical gender language), Dutch (a language with a combination of grammatical gender and natural gender), and English (a natural gender language). In German, the results show that grammatical gender alone is not a decisive factor in causing masculine or feminine gender associations of inanimate nouns. Rather, it is the combination of grammatical gender and stereotypical gender associations of nouns that plays a role. In English, nouns associated with neutral, masculine and even feminine gender had significantly more neutral adjectival associations. In Dutch, nouns with common and neuter gender resulted in a higher proportion of masculine adjectival associations because these nouns are mostly referred to with common and masculine pronouns. We observed a special role played by stereotypical feminine associations of nouns in German, Dutch, and English.This pilot study is a contribution to the theoretical debate on the impact language has on general cognition. More specifically, we applied a Word Sketch collocator (an innovative NLP tool operating on large-scale corpora) to collect human adjective collocations of masculine, feminine, and neuter inanimate nouns in German, Dutch, and English to see whether there is a correlation between the grammatical genders of inanimate nouns and the adjective collocations most frequently used to describe those nouns. Later, in a series of online questionnaires, we examined the impact of grammatical gender and stereotypical gender associations on the perception of inanimate nouns (e.g., street, lamp, bottle) by testing the gender associations of their human adjective collocations obtained from the Word Sketch collocator in German (a grammatical gender language), Dutch (a language with a combination of grammatical gender and natural gender), and English (a natural gender language). In German, the results show that grammatical gender alone is not a decisive factor in causing masculine or feminine gender associations of inanimate nouns. Rather, it is the combination of grammatical gender and stereotypical gender associations of nouns that plays a role. In English, nouns associated with neutral, masculine and even feminine gender had significantly more neutral adjectival associations. In Dutch, nouns with common and neuter gender resulted in a higher proportion of masculine adjectival associations because these nouns are mostly referred to with common and masculine pronouns. We observed a special role played by stereotypical feminine associations of nouns in German, Dutch, and English

Silica Surface Modification and Its Application in Permanent Link with Nucleic Acids

In this paper, the Pt-catalyzed hydrosilylation of hydroxyl ethers is described. Various bifunctional alkoxysilanes were obtained and applied in O-silylation of free hydroxyl groups on the silica surface. These modified solid materials have been used as excellent supports for linking synthetic nucleic acids. Nucleic acids permanently attached to the solid surface were tested in hybridization with complementary fluorescence-labeled sequences. Detection of nucleic acids anchored to the solid support was performed by fluorescence microscopy after hybridization