The Federal Circuit\u27s Unbounded Conception Of Inherency In Patent Law

This Note examines the doctrine of inherency in patent law, which relates to the Patent Act’s novelty requirement, and—theoretically— seeks to ensure that inventions that are already within the public domain are not wrenched away from the public through a later patent grant. Unfortunately, a lack of recent Supreme Court guidance and a conflict within the Federal Circuit concerning what is necessary to prove inherency have led to a confusing and unpredictable body of inherency law. This Note begins by outlining the increased concern for uniformity and predictability in patent law; it then traces the early treatment of inherent anticipation by the Supreme Court, as well as the Federal Circuit and its predecessor court. Next, it argues that the Federal Circuit’s more recent inherency jurisprudence has expanded the scope of inherency, particularly with respect to patents covering pharmaceuticals, introducing dangerous and costly unpredictability into the patent system. Finally, it proposes a common-sense solution aimed at abrogating the current boundless conception of inherency in order to allow patent law and inherency to perform their central functions: to provide predictability and ensure the important patent policy of rewarding new inventions that are not already within the public domain

Preheating after multifield inflation with nonminimal couplings, II: Resonance Structure

This is the second in a series of papers on preheating in inflationary models comprised of multiple scalar fields coupled nonminimally to gravity. In this paper, we work in the rigid-spacetime approximation and consider field trajectories within the single-field attractor, which is a generic feature of these models. We construct the Floquet charts to find regions of parameter space in which particle production is efficient for both the adiabatic and isocurvature modes, and analyze the resonance structure using analytic and semi-analytic techniques. Particle production in the adiabatic direction is characterized by the existence of an asymptotic scaling solution at large values of the nonminimal couplings, $\xi_I \gg 1$, in which the dominant instability band arises in the long-wavelength limit, for comoving wavenumbers $k \rightarrow 0$. However, the large-$\xi_I$ regime is not reached until $\xi_I \geq {\cal O} (100)$. In the intermediate regime, with $\xi_I \sim {\cal O}(1 - 10)$, the resonance structure depends strongly on wavenumber and couplings. The resonance structure for isocurvature perturbations is distinct and more complicated than its adiabatic counterpart. An intermediate regime, for $\xi_I \sim {\cal O} (1 - 10)$, is again evident. For large values of $\xi_I$, the Floquet chart consists of densely spaced, nearly parallel instability bands, suggesting a very efficient preheating behavior. The increased efficiency arises from features of the nontrivial field-space manifold in the Einstein frame, which itself arises from the fields' nonminimal couplings in the Jordan frame, and has no analogue in models with minimal couplings. Quantitatively, the approach to the large-$\xi_I$ asymptotic solution for isocurvature modes is slower than in the case of the adiabatic modes.Comment: 46 pages, 23 figures. References added and minor edits made to match published versio

Preheating after multifield inflation with nonminimal couplings, III: Dynamical spacetime results

This paper concludes our semi-analytic study of preheating in inflationary models comprised of multiple scalar fields coupled nonminimally to gravity. Using the covariant framework of paper I in this series, we extend the rigid-spacetime results of paper II by considering both the expansion of the universe during preheating, as well as the effect of the coupled metric perturbations on particle production. The adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations are governed by different effective masses that scale differently with the nonminimal couplings and evolve differently in time. The effective mass for the adiabatic modes is dominated by contributions from the coupled metric perturbations immediately after inflation. The metric perturbations contribute an oscillating tachyonic term that enhances an early period of significant particle production for the adiabatic modes, which ceases on a time-scale governed by the nonminimal couplings $\xi_I$. The effective mass of the isocurvature perturbations, on the other hand, is dominated by contributions from the fields' potential and from the curvature of the field-space manifold (in the Einstein frame), the balance between which shifts on a time-scale governed by $\xi_I$. As in papers I and II, we identify distinct behavior depending on whether the nonminimal couplings are small ($\xi_I \lesssim {\cal O} (1)$), intermediate ($\xi_I \sim {\cal O} (1 - 10)$), or large ($\xi_I \geq 100$).Comment: 34 pages, 11 figures. References added and minor edits made to match published versio

Transgenerational Fecundity Compensation And Post-Parasitism Reproduction By Aphids In Response To Their Parasitoids

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. March 2017. Major: Ecology, Evolution and Behavior. Advisor: George Heimpel. 1 computer file (PDF); vii, 81 pages.Increased reproductive effort by organisms in response to attack by consumers (‘fecundity compensation’) is well documented in both plants and animals, though most examples only involve direct compensation by the individuals exposed to consumers. In Chapter 1, I used the parasitoid wasp Lysiphlebus orientalis Starý & Rakhshani (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) and the soybean aphid, Aphis glycines Matsumura (Hemiptera: Aphididae), to determine whether reproduction by parasitized aphids can lead to fecundity compensation. Although parasitism by L. orientalis strongly decreased fecundity for parasitized aphids, offspring of parasitized aphids reproduced at a greater rate at maturity than did the offspring of non-parasitized aphids. Also, parasitized aphids contained fewer but larger embryos developing within them. The presence of these larger embryos may explain how the offspring of parasitized aphids can produce more progeny with no apparent reduction in progeny quality. Mature and nearly mature A. glycines successfully reproduced after parasitism, a prerequisite for transgenerational fecundity compensation, and L. orientalis showed a preference for these age classes of aphids as hosts when foraging. This work is the first known demonstration of transgenerational fecundity compensation in an animal. In Chapter 2, I demonstrated that L. orientalis is able to suppress caged populations of A. glycines in spite of transgenerational fecundity compensation by parasitized aphids. Aphid populations exposed to parasitoids were driven to extinction within, on average, 8 or 11 weeks depending on the starting density of parasitoids. I also showed that transgenerational fecundity compensation has a relatively minor impact on modeled A. glycines populations. Instead, direct reproduction by parasitized aphids, as well as parasitoid host-stage preference, had stronger impacts. Finally, in Chapter 3, I showed that transgenerational fecundity compensation is not limited to the A. glycines – L. orientalis association, as it also occurs when Aphis craccivora Koch (Hemiptera: Aphididae) is attacked by both L. orientalis and Lysiphlebus fabarum (Marshall) (Hympenoptera: Braconidae). I also found that L. orientalis may prefer slightly older A. craccivora hosts than L. fabarum. These results indicate that while transgenerational fecundity compensation may be an interesting and novel physiological phenomenon present in multiple aphid-parasitoid associations, it may be relatively inconsequential for populations of aphids and their parasitoids

Novel muon imaging techniques

Owing to the high penetrating power of high-energy cosmic ray muons, muon imaging techniques can be used to image large bulky objects, especially objects with heavy shielding. Muon imaging systems work just like CT scanners in the medical imaging field—that is, they can reveal information inside of a target. There are two forms of muon imaging techniques: muon absorption imaging and muon multiple scattering imaging. The former is based on the flux attenuation of muons, and the latter is based on the multiple scattering of muons in matter. The muon absorption imaging technique is capable of imaging very large objects such as volcanoes and large buildings, and also smaller objects like spent fuel casks; the muon multiple scattering imaging technique is best suited to inspect smaller objects such as nuclear waste containers. Muon imaging techniques can be applied in a broad variety of fields, i.e. from measuring the magma thickness of volcanoes to searching for secret cavities in pyramids, and from monitoring the borders of countries checking for special nuclear materials to monitoring the spent fuel casks for nuclear safeguards applications. In this paper, the principles of muon imaging are reviewed. Image reconstruction algorithms such as Filtered Back Projection and Maximum Likelihood Expectation Maximization are discussed. The capability of muon imaging techniques is demonstrated through a Geant4 simulation study for imaging a nuclear spent fuel cask