The Death of the Genus Claim

The central feature of patent law in the chemical, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical industries is the genus claim – a patent that covers not just one specific chemical but a group of related chemicals. Genus claims are everywhere, and any patent lawyer will tell you they are critical to effective patent protection.But as we show in this article, the law has changed dramatically in the last twenty-five years, to the point where it is no longer possible to have a valid genus claim. Courts almost always hold them invalid. Remarkably, they do this without having acknowledged that they have fundamentally changed an important area of law. More remarkably, patent lawyers and patent owners don’t seem to have noticed. Invention, investment, patenting, and patent litigation continue much as they had before. It’s just that the patents that are the basis of all that activity are invalid.We document this surprising shift in the law. We explain why we think it represents both bad law and bad policy. We also explain why it hasn’t seemed to matter, and what that fact says about the relevance of law more generally in governing business behavior

A portable gamma-ray spectrometer using compressed xenon

An ionization chamber using compressed xenon has been designed and built for gamma-ray spectrometry. The device is based on signal measurement from a parallel plate detector, with the gas enclosure constructed specifically for packaging into a portable instrument; thus, appropriate engineering practices comprises two small containers that can be setup for operation in just a few minutes. Its sensitivity is 100 keV to over 1 MeV, with a resolution at 662 keV of 2.5% FWHM for uniform irradiation, and 2% FWHM for collimated irradiation, comparable to the best ever with compressed xenon. It also exhibits greater specificity that most scintillators, such as NaI. The device is insensitive to neutron damage and has a low power requirement

Co-patents’ commercialization: evidence from China

Co-patents are outcomes of R&D collaboration, which has been proven with higher-quality. Does this mean that high-quality patents should also extend their advantage to the technology market? Based on the transaction cost theory, we use the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) database and logit model to explore the effect of co-ownership on firms’ patent commercialization and the factors of co-patents that affect their commercialization. Our findings illustrate that co-ownership has a negative impact on patent commercialization. In addition, the co-owner’s nature, country, and co-patent’s industry influence the commercialization of co-patents. Firstly, a company and a university or research institution’s co-owned co-patents are less likely to be commercialization than a company and a company coowned co-patents. Secondly, multi-countries co-owned co-patents are less likely to be commercialization than a single-country coowned co-patents. Thirdly, co-patents in high technology (hightech) industries are less likely to be commercialization than copatents in non-high-tech industries. This paper supports policymakers in implementing policies to promote the co-patents’ commercialization. Meanwhile, our paper suggests that to pursue the economic value of the R&D collaborative intellectual property fruits, R&D collaborative intellectual property fruits are not be encouraged to be applied as the co-patents.European Union (EU) TIN2016-75850-

A portable gammaray spectrometer using compressed xenon

Abstract An ionization chamber using compressed xenon has been designed and built for gamma-ray spectrometry. The device is based on signal measurement from a parallel plate detector, with the gas enclosure constructed specifically for packaging into a portable instrument; thus, appropriate engineering practices using ASME codes have been followed. The portable system comprises two small containers that can be setup for operation in just a few minutes. Its sensitivity is 100 keV to over 1 MeV, with a resolution at 662 keV of 2.5% FWHM for uniform irradiation, and 2% FWHM for collimated irradiation, comparable to the best ever with compressed xenon. It also exhibits greater specificity than most scintillators, such as NaI. The device is insensitive to neutron damage and has a low power requirement

The advanced cyberinfrastructure research and education facilitators virtual residency: Toward a national cyberinfrastructure workforce

An Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Research and Education Facilitator (ACI-REF) works directly with researchers to advance the computing- and data-intensive aspects of their research, helping them to make effective use of Cyberinfrastructure (CI). The University of Oklahoma (OU) is leading a national "virtual residency" program to prepare ACI-REFs to provide CI facilitation to the diverse populations of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) researchers that they serve. Until recently, CI Facilitators have had no education or training program; the Virtual Residency program addresses this national need by providing: (1) training, specifically (a) summer workshops and (b) third party training opportunity alerts; (2) a community of CI Facilitators, enabled by (c) a biweekly conference call and (d) a mailing list

Trade secrets law

The standardisation of trade secret protection was one of the goals of the TRIPs Agreement of 1998. Nevertheless, substantial differences in this protection remain across jurisdictions. When defining the optimal scope of trade secrets law, lawmakers should be aware that strong trade secret protection is likely to promote inventiveness, but it is also likely to hinder the diffusion of knowledge and prevent competition

A study of patent thickets

Report analysing whether entry of UK enterprises into patenting in a technology area is affected by patent thickets in the technology area

Urinary Epidermal Growth Factor as a Marker of Disease Progression in Children With Nephrotic Syndrome

© 2019 International Society of Nephrology Introduction: Childhood-onset nephrotic syndrome has a variable clinical course. Improved predictive markers of long-term outcomes in children with nephrotic syndrome are needed. This study tests the association between baseline urinary epidermal growth factor (uEGF) excretion and longitudinal kidney function in children with nephrotic syndrome. Methods: The study evaluated 191 participants younger than 18 years enrolled in the Nephrotic Syndrome Study Network, including 118 with their first clinically indicated kidney biopsy (68 minimal change disease; 50 focal seNorthwell Healthntal glomerulosclerosis) and 73 with incident nephrotic syndrome without a biopsy. uEGF was measured at baseline for all participants and normalized by the urine creatinine (Cr) concentration. Renal epidermal growth factor (EGF) mRNA was measured in the tubular compartment microdissected from kidney biopsy cores from a subset of patients. Linear mixed models were used to test if baseline uEGF/Cr and EGF mRNA expression were associated with change in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) over time. Results: Higher uEGF/Cr at baseline was associated with slower eGFR decline during follow-up (median follow-up = 30 months). Halving of uEGF/Cr was associated with a decrease in eGFR slope of 2.0 ml/min per 1.73 m2 per year (P \u3c 0.001) adjusted for age, race, diagnosis, baseline eGFR and proteinuria, and APOL1 genotype. In the biopsied subgroup, uEGF/Cr was correlated with EGF mRNA expression (r = 0.74; P \u3c 0.001), but uEGF/Cr was retained over mRNA expression as the stronger predictor of eGFR slope after multivariable adjustment (decrease in eGFR slope of 1.7 ml/min per 1.73 m2 per year per log2 decrease in uEGF/Cr; P \u3c 0.001). Conclusion: uEGF/Cr may be a useful noninvasive biomarker that can assist in predicting the long-term course of kidney function in children with incident nephrotic syndrome

To be financed or not : the role of patents for venture capital financing

This paper investigates how patent applications and grants held by new ventures improve their ability to attract venture capital (VC) financing. We argue that investors are faced with considerable uncertainty and therefore rely on patents as signals when trying to assess the prospects of potential portfolio companies. For a sample of VC-seeking German and British biotechnology companies we have identified all patents filed at the European Patent Office (EPO). Applying hazard rate analysis, we find that in the presence of patent applications, VC financing occurs earlier. Our results also show that VCs pay attention to patent quality, financing those ventures faster which later turn out to have high-quality patents. Patent oppositions increase the likelihood of receiving VC, but ultimate grant decisions do not spur VC financing, presumably because they are anticipated. Our empirical results and interviews with VCs suggest that the process of patenting generates signals which help to overcome the liabilities of newness faced by new ventures