A Study of the Factors Affecting Perceptions of Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) in Young People

No abstract available

Informational Hearing on Patent Assertion Entities

Testimony before the California Assembly Select Committee on High Technolog

Deflation and Economic Output

This paper will look at deflation and its relationship to economic output. This is an area of economic research that has received relatively little attention and, where it has, researchers disagree as to the how the two variables relate. In order to explore these questions, the following analysis will consider data from a sample of eight countries in VAR equations to look at the relationship between prices and economic output since the mid-1800s with control variables to limit potential omitted variable bias, and Granger-causality testing as well as impulse response testing to further analyze obtained results. The resulting analysis provides evidence that there is no general relationship between deflation and economic output, and that in many cases changes in price is not significant in determining changes in economic output

An Empirical Study of Patent Litigation Timing: Could a Patent Term Reduction Decimate Trolls Without Harming Innovators?

This article reports the findings of an empirical analysis of the relative ages of patents litigated by practicing and non-practicing patentees. Studying all infringement claims brought to enforce a sample of recently expired patents, I find considerable variance. Product-producing companies predominately enforce their patents soon after issuance and complete their enforcement activities well before their patent rights expire. NPEs, by contrast, begin asserting their patents relatively late in the patent term and frequently continue to litigate to the verge of expiration. This variance in litigation timing is so dramatic that all claims asserting the average product-company patent are resolved before the average NPE patent is asserted for the first time. Further, I find that NPEs are the dominate source of patent enforcement in the final few years of the patent term. NPEs, enforcers of just twenty percent of all studied patents, are responsible for more than two-thirds of all suits and over eighty percent of all patent claims litigated in the final three years of the patent term. These findings cast serious doubt on the utility of the last few years of the patent term and suggest that Congress should, at a minimum, act to increase the frequency and magnitude of maintenance fee payments in the latter half of the patent term

Particle Size Control for PIV Seeding Using Dry Ice

Particle image velocimetry (PIV) has been carried out using solid carbon dioxide (CO2) particles as the seed material to continue the development of clean seeding for use in large-scale, closed-circuit tunnels. Testing occurred in two wind tunnels at subsonic and supersonic speeds using dry ice particles generated by allowing liquefied CO2 to expand from a small diameter injector tube through a larger diameter shroud tube. The particles were injected into the plenum and discrete solid particles, suitable for PIV measurements, were present in the test section. Data on particle size were first collected using a Malvern particle size analyzer for three sizes of injector tubes, two sizes of shroud tubes, and two different types of shroud tubes: a simple tube and a static mixing tube. The injectors using the static mixing shroud tube and the simple shroud tube were each used in the adjustable throat supersonic blowdown wind tunnel at the Air Force Institute of Technology with a 6 inch by 6.5 inch cross-section. Particle size results for these two configurations suggested that the static mixing shroud tube decreased the Sauter mean particle diameter by a factor of three. In the tunnel, Mach 1.92 flow over a 10 degree ramp was produced and PIV images captured particles above the ramp, both upstream and downstream of the oblique shock while schlieren imaging provided insight into the flow conditions. Both the velocities far upstream and far downstream of the shock closely matched expectations, based on the wind tunnel instrumentation. Particle lag for the flow across the shock was quantified for the two cases, and despite the substantial, quantified differences in particle size measured at the shroud tube exit, the results for both shroud tubes were generally consistent with a theoretical response of a 2 micron particle. Finally, for the first time particles were injected into the stilling chamber of the Air Force Research Laboratory\u27s closed-circuit Trisonic Gas-dynamics Facility, which has a 24 inch by 24 inch cross-section, at three subsonic speeds and four stagnation pressures. PIV was successfully carried out in each case. Measured streamwise velocities matched expected velocities within a few percent based on tunnel instrumentation, and freestream turbulence was found to be less than 2% in most cases. These results suggest that PIV using CO2 particles may be robustly implemented in this closed-circuit wind tunnel without risk of contaminating the tunnel

Why Patentable Subject Matter Matters for Software

Increasingly, courts weary from years of arguing about the scope of patentable subject matter for software patents seem ready to throw in the towel. Rather than continue efforts to craft a test for determining when a software invention graduates from an “abstract idea” or mere algorithm into a patentable invention, several recent Federal Circuit opinions dismissinely reject section 101 challenges as attacks that should have be made instead under sections 102, 103, and 112. This short essay criticizes this recent trend in patentable subject matter jurisprudence. Accused infringers look to section 101 for relief not because doing so is a convenient shortcut around more traditional checks on patentability, but rather precisely because traditional checks on patentability have proven to be woefully ineffective weapons against overbroad software patents

Misuse of Reasonable Royalty Damages as a Patent Infringement Deterrent, The

This Article studies the Federal Circuit\u27s use of excessive reasonable royalty awards as a patent infringement deterrent. I argue against this practice, explaining that, properly viewed in context of the patent system as a whole, distorting the reasonable royalty measure of damages is an unnecessary and ineffective means of ensuring an optimal level of reward for inventors and deterrence for infringers. First, I introduce cases in which the Federal Circuit and other courts following its lead have awarded punitive reasonable royalty awards and explain the Federal Circuit\u27s professed rationale for doing so. Next, I demonstrate that this practice makes little sense, given the number of other powerful deterrents already present in the patent system. I also explain that any additional deterrence-related benefits attributable to excess damages are not realized when courts impose those damages against innocent infringers - a group that likely makes up the lion \u27s share of patent infringers. I further explain that there is good reason to believe that the patent system already overdeters infringement without the added burden of inflated royalties, because accused infringers participating in a competitive market face strong incentives not to challenge patents asserted against them. Finally, I propose several patent reforms for efficiently deterring deliberate copyists, while sparing innocent infringers from that threat

De la crisis a la recuperación: Causas, desarrollo y consecuencias de la Gran Recesión

¿Qué desató la mayor desaceleración global que se haya visto en más de seis décadas? Y, ¿cómo puede lograrse una recuperación sostenible? De la crisis a la recuperación, dentro de la colección en español Esenciales OCDE (Insights en inglés), hace un recuento de las causas, el desarrollo y las consecuencias de la “Gran Recesión”. Explica de qué manera la acumulación global de liquidez, aunada a una mala regulación, provocó una crisis financiera que rápidamente se extendió a la economía real, destruyendo empresas y disparando el desempleo a los niveles más altos en décadas. Aunque parece que lo peor de la crisis ha pasado, se antoja poco probable volver pronto al crecimiento sólido y se requerirán varios años para que el empleo retorne a las tasas previas a la crisis. Dados los altos niveles de deuda pública y privada, los recortes y el ahorro quizá se conviertan en la máxima prioridad, lo cual significa que los efectos de la recesión seguirán sintiéndose en los años por venir