Deviated, Unsound, and Self-Retreating: A Critical Assessment of the Princo V. Itc En Banc Decision

The licensing dispute between Philips and Taiwan CD-R/RW manufacturers has been a powerful generator of new developments in the field of patent and competition, which culminated with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit\u27s Princo en banc decision in 2010. By adding new elements to the patent-misuse test, this decision confined the applicable area of the patent-misuse doctrine to the restrictions that patent owners impose on licensees, thus substantially constraining its scope and changing its landscape. After careful review of the Federal Circuit\u27s holding and reasoning, this article finds that this decision deviating from United States Supreme Court precedents, which emphasized the policy behind patent-misuse, to prevent patent owners from transgressing the boundary of the patent grant as set by the USPTO, and is also inconsistent with prior Federal Circuit cases law. The Federal Circuit also ignored the importance of equitable discretion, which has been a key feature of the patent-misuse doctrine. From a functional perspective, the Federal Circuit’s ruling created inevitable gaps in Section 337 proceedings for respondents to defy a patent owner’s anticompetitive practices. Ultimately, a careful reconsideration of the Federal Circuit’s decision in the Princo en banc case may be necessary

Evaluating Precipitation Features and Rainfall Characteristics in a Multi-scale Modeling Framework

Cloud and precipitation systems over the tropics and subtropics are simulated with a multi-scale modeling framework (MMF) and compared against the TRMM radar precipitation features (RPFs) product. A methodology, in close analogy to the TRMM RPFs, is developed to analyze simulated cloud precipitating structures from the embedded two-dimensional cloud-resolving models (CRMs) within an MMF. Despite the two-dimensionality of the CRMs, the simulated RPFs population distribution, and horizontal and vertical structure are in good agreement with TRMM observations. However, some deficits are also found in the model simulations. The model tends to overestimate mean convective precipitation rates for RPFs with a size less than 100 km, contributing to the excessive precipitation biases in the warm pool and western Pacific, western and northern India Ocean, and eastern Pacific commonly found in most MMFs. For large features with a size greater than 150 km, both convective and stratiform rain rates are underestimated. The distribution of maximum radar echo top heights as a function of RPF size is well simulated except the model tends to underestimate the occurrence frequency of maximum heights greater than 15 km. The maximum echo top heights for convective cells embedded within large RPFs with a size greater than 150 km are also underestimated. The cyclic lateral boundary with a limited model domain generates artificial occurrences for RPFs with a size close to the model domain size, producing a significant contribution to the total rainfall due to their sizes. This cyclic lateral boundary effect can be easily identified and quantified in both probability and cumulative distribution functions of RPFs. The geophysical distribution of the population of the largest RPFs in the control experiment shows they are mainly located in the Subtropics but also partially contribute to the common MMF biases of excessive precipitation in the Tropics. Sensitivity experiments using CRMs with different domain sizes and different grid spacings show larger domains (higher resolution) tend to shift the RPFs distribution to large (small) sizes. The cyclic lateral boundary biases increase as CRM domain size decreases. The impacts of model horizontal and vertical resolution on simulated convective systems are also investigated

The Anticipated Supernova Associated with GRB090618

We use the cannonball model of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) and public data from the first day of observations of GRB 090618 to predict its X-ray and optical lightcurves until very late times, and, in particular, the emergence of a photometric and spectroscopic signature of an SN akin to SN1998bw in its optical afterglow with an anticipated peak brightness of magnitude 23 in the R band around July 10, 2009, if extinction in the host galaxy can be neglected.Comment: 10 pages, 2 Figure

Patent Protection of Pharmacologically Active Metabolites: Theoretical and Technological Analysis on the Jurisprudence of Four Regions

Active metabolite patents have been instrumental for brandname pharmaceutical companies to maintain their exclusivity even after the drug patents expire. This strategy obstructs market entry of generic medicine and reduces affordable drugs. The authors review jurisprudence from the United States, Europe, India, and Taiwan in search for practical solutions to confront this problem. Given the unique pharmacological value that active metabolites may possess, patent protection for those purified or synthesized in vitro should be preserved, but for those produced by metabolism should be declined. Except India, most countries under investigation comport with this dichotomy. Their jurisprudence may be subsumed into three possible solutions. The United States and the United Kingdom adopt the inherent anticipation doctrine; yet depriving artisan recognition of novelty analysis makes this doctrine highly controversial. The product of nature doctrine gravely suffers from incoherence and uncertainty in judging patentability. The non-practice theory, as articulated by Taiwan’s Intellectual Property (IP) Court, avoids these shortcomings. The unambiguity and sound rationale further support this theory to be the preferable solution among the three

Patent Protection of Pharmacologically Active Metabolites: Theoretical and Technological Analysis on the Jurisprudence of Four Regions

Active metabolite patents have been instrumental for brandname pharmaceutical companies to maintain their exclusivity even after the drug patents expire. This strategy obstructs market entry of generic medicine and reduces affordable drugs. The authors review jurisprudence from the United States, Europe, India, and Taiwan in search for practical solutions to confront this problem. Given the unique pharmacological value that active metabolites may possess, patent protection for those purified or synthesized in vitro should be preserved, but for those produced by metabolism should be declined. Except India, most countries under investigation comport with this dichotomy. Their jurisprudence may be subsumed into three possible solutions. The United States and the United Kingdom adopt the inherent anticipation doctrine; yet depriving artisan recognition of novelty analysis makes this doctrine highly controversial. The product of nature doctrine gravely suffers from incoherence and uncertainty in judging patentability. The non-practice theory, as articulated by Taiwan’s Intellectual Property (IP) Court, avoids these shortcomings. The unambiguity and sound rationale further support this theory to be the preferable solution among the three

The diverse broad-band light-curves of Swift GRBs reproduced with the cannonball model

Two radiation mechanisms, inverse Compton scattering (ICS) and synchrotron radiation (SR), suffice within the cannonball (CB) model of long gamma ray bursts (LGRBs) and X-ray flashes (XRFs) to provide a very simple and accurate description of their observed prompt emission and afterglows. Simple as they are, the two mechanisms and the burst environment generate the rich structure of the light curves at all frequencies and times. This is demonstrated for 33 selected Swift LGRBs and XRFs, which are well sampled from early until late time and faithfully represent the entire diversity of the broad-band light curves of Swift LGRBs and XRFs. Their prompt gamma-ray and X-ray emission is dominated by ICS of `glory' light. During their fast decline phase, ICS is taken over by SR, which dominates their broad-band afterglow. The pulse shape and spectral evolution of the gamma-ray peaks and the early-time X-ray flares, and even the delayed optical `humps' in XRFs, are correctly predicted. The `canonical' and non-canonical X-ray light curves and the chromatic behaviour of the broad-band afterglows are well reproduced. In particular, in canonical X-ray light curves, the initial fast decline and rapid softening of the prompt emission, the transition to the plateau phase, the subsequent gradual steepening of the plateau to an asymptotic power-law decay, and the transition from chromatic to achromatic behaviour of the light curves agrees well with those predicted by the CB model. The Swift early-time data on XRF 060218 are inconsistent with a black-body emission from a shock break-out through a stellar envelope. Instead, they are well described by ICS of glory light by a jet breaking out from SN2006aj.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. 63 pages, 10 (multiple) figure

Targeted Delivery of siRNA to the Tumor

We have developed a surface-modified LPD (liposome-polycation-DNA) nanoparticle formulation by mixing cationic liposomes, a polycationic peptide and nucleic acids (mixture of DNA and siRNA) at a fixed ratio, followed by post-inserting a PEGylated lipid. This self-assembled nanoparticle formulation was around 100 nm in diameter with 90% encapsulation efficiency for siRNA. The nucleic acid was complexed with the peptide into a compact core, which was coated with two lipid bilayers. The inner lipid bilayer was stabilized by the charge-charge interaction between the cationic lipids and the compact core. Upon addition of a PEGylated lipid, the outer lipid bilayer was stripped off and the lipid anchor was inserted into the outer leaflet of the inner bilayer, resulting in approximately 10.6 mol% modification of PEG (polyethylene glycol) on the surface of the nanoparticles. The high degree of PEGylation completely shielded the charge of the nanoparticles with the zeta potential close to neutral (-5.6 ± 4.5 mV) and abolished the reticuloendothelial uptake in the isolated liver. When i.v. injected into tumor bearing mice (s.c. human lung cancer xenograft model in the nude mice), the nanoparticles delivered 70-80% injected siRNA/g into the tumor, while the normal organs only showed a moderate uptake (10-20% injected siRNA/g). After the conjugation of a targeting ligand, anisamide, at the distal end of the PEG, the intracellular delivery of siRNA into the sigma receptor expressing tumor was significantly enhanced. This led to efficient EGFR silencing, significant apoptosis induction and tumor growth inhibition at the dose of 1.2 mg siRNA/kg for three consecutive injections. The experimental murine lung metastasis model was established by i.v. injecting the mouse melanoma cells, which were stably transduced with a luciferase gene by retrovirus, into the mice. An improved metastatic tumor delivery of siRNA was discovered by using the nanoparticles. When combinatorial siRNA sequences were delivered, the oncogenes (MDM2, c-myc and VEGF) in the lung metastasis were silenced simultaneously, leading to 70-80% tumor load reduction and 30% prolongation in animal lifespan. The nanoparticle formulation showed minimal to no otoxicity in both animal models. The results promise the potential use of this formulation clinically.Doctor of Philosoph

Concurrent bandits and cognitive radio networks

We consider the problem of multiple users targeting the arms of a single multi-armed stochastic bandit. The motivation for this problem comes from cognitive radio networks, where selfish users need to coexist without any side communication between them, implicit cooperation or common control. Even the number of users may be unknown and can vary as users join or leave the network. We propose an algorithm that combines an $\epsilon$-greedy learning rule with a collision avoidance mechanism. We analyze its regret with respect to the system-wide optimum and show that sub-linear regret can be obtained in this setting. Experiments show dramatic improvement compared to other algorithms for this setting

_In vivo_ photoacoustic molecular imaging with simultaneous multiple selective targeting using antibody-conjugated gold nanorods

The use of gold nanorods for photoacoustic molecular imaging in vivo with simultaneous multiple selective targeting is reported. The extravasation of multiple molecular probes is demonstrated, and used to probe molecular information of cancer cells. This technique allows molecular profiles representing tumor characteristics to be obtained and a heterogeneous population of cancer cells in a lesion to be determined. The results also show that the image contrast can be enhanced by using a mixture of different molecular probes. In this study, HER2, EGFR, and CXCR4 were chosen as the primary target molecules for examining two types of cancer cells, OECM1 and Cal27. OECM1 cells overexpressed HER2 but exhibited a low expression of EGFR, while Cal27 cells showed the opposite expression profile. Single and double targeting resulted in signal enhancements of up to 3 dB and up to 5 dB, respectively, and hence has potential in improving cancer diagnoses