Concurrence et propriété intellectuelle

Concurrence et propriété intellectuelle est une étude approfondie des relations entre deux branches très modernes du droit, dont les points de rencontre et de friction se sont multipliés depuis une vingtaine d’années. L’ouvrage étudie les applications du droit de la concurrence à l’obtention et l’exercice des droits de propriété industrielle et artistique, dont il explore aussi certains aspects méconnus tels que les concentrations, les lignes directrices relatives aux règlements d’exemption pertinents (transfert de technologie, accords verticaux, spécialisation, recherche-développement), les « pools » de brevets, la jurisprudence et la doctrine américaines spécifiques (accords de licence, facilités essentielles, etc.)... L\u27auteur adopte une approche claire et approfondie, étayée par des sources très complètes et éclairée par l\u27analyse économique, qui recherche constamment un équilibre sans parti pris entre le droit de la propriété intellectuelle et le droit de la concurrence. En témoigne le plan de l\u27ouvrage. Une première partie aborde les conséquences de l\u27application du droit de la concurrence au droit de la propriété intellectuelle, étudiant, d\u27une part, les éléments neutres, ceux qui n\u27affectent pas les droits de propriété intellectuelle et, d\u27autre part, l\u27érosion du droit exclusif. Une seconde partie envisage les instruments de cette application, c\u27est-à-dire, d\u27une part, les méthodes et raisonnements conduisant à un relatif équilibre entre les deux branches du droit, et, d\u27autre part, ceux qui induisent une rupture au détriment des droits de propriété intellectuelle et créent de l\u27insécurité juridique (notion de marché pertinent, théorie des infrastructures essentielles, règlements d\u27exemption dans leur nouvelle forme, lignes directrices, règle de raison, référence à une notion ambiguë d\u27un consommateur servant désormais d\u27arbitre aux conflits...). Tout en montrant les apports positifs du droit de la concurrence, l’ouvrage souligne ses défauts : complexité de la construction ; caractère artificiel et fluctuant de théories qui n’assurent pas de prévisibilité au titulaire de droits ; ambiguïté de la référence à l’économie, facteur apparent de réalisme mais source d’insécurité réelle ; utilisation maladroite de notions empruntées au droit des États-Unis (alors même qu’elles y restent controversées) par le droit communautaire et, à un second niveau, difficultés de mise en œuvre des constructions communautaires par les autorités nationales. Cet ouvrage a été honoré du prix de thèse de l’IRPI et d’un prix de la Fondation Robert ABDESSELAM

Anisotropic excitation spectrum of a dipolar quantum Bose gas

We measure the excitation spectrum of a dipolar Chromium Bose Einstein Condensate with Raman-Bragg spectroscopy. The energy spectrum depends on the orientation of the dipoles with respect to the excitation momentum, demonstrating an anisotropy which originates from the dipole-dipole interactions between the atoms. We compare our results with the Bogoliubov theory based on the local density approximation, and, at large excitation wavelengths, with numerical simulations of the time dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Our results show an anisotropy of the speed of soundComment: 3 figure

Litostratigrafie van de kwartaire sedimenten in het Oostelijk Kustgebied (België)

The composition of the Quaternary surface sediments in the Coastal Area is known in detail since the making of the geological map and especially since the systematic soil survey. The knowledge of the deeper Quaternary sediments however remains still fragmentary .Field work by the Center for Hydrogeological Research at the State University of Ghent has provided new data about the relief of the Tertiary substratum and the lithostratigraphy of the Pleistocene and Holocene sediments of the eastern part of the Coastal Area. A south-north section indicates the existence, in the burried surface of the Tertiary substratum, of two degradation levels (between -17 and -22 and between -8 and -6). Several lithostratigraphic units have been distinguished. The deepest deposit is the gravel-sand Ostend formation of Eemian age. This deposit is covered by the sandy Uitkerke formation of Weichselian age. The Wenduine formation on top of this sand is very heterogeneous; it has been formed during the transition between Pleistocene and Holocene. Along the edge of Inner Flanders the -8 level is overlain by the clayey Meetkerke formation with Hydrobia. In seaward direction this formation becomes sandy when passing laterally into the Houtave formation. The chronostratigraphic relationship between the two formations is not clear although the latter was probably deposited during the Atlantic. They are covered by the sands of the Zuienkerke formation, of which the northern part is also of Atlantic age. During this period and the Subboreal the Nieuwmunster peat was formed. This peat has been covered by the Dunkirk formation, except in the "Moere" of Meetkerke

Control of dipolar relaxation in external fields

We study dipolar relaxation in both ultra-cold thermal and Bose-condensed chromium atom gases. We show three different ways to control dipolar relaxation, making use of either a static magnetic field, an oscillatory magnetic field, or an optical lattice to reduce the dimensionality of the gas from 3D to 2D. Although dipolar relaxation generally increases as a function of a static magnetic field intensity, we find a range of non-zero magnetic field intensities where dipolar relaxation is strongly reduced. We use this resonant reduction to accurately determine the S=6 scattering length of chromium atoms: $a_6 = 103 \pm 4 a_0$. We compare this new measurement to another new determination of $a_6$, which we perform by analysing the precise spectroscopy of a Feshbach resonance in d-wave collisions, yielding $a_6 = 102.5 \pm 0.4 a_0$. These two measurements provide by far the most precise determination of $a_6$ to date. We then show that, although dipolar interactions are long-range interactions, dipolar relaxation only involves the incoming partial wave $l=0$ for large enough magnetic field intensities, which has interesting consequences on the stability of dipolar Fermi gases. We then study ultra-cold chromium gases in a 1D optical lattice resulting in a collection of independent 2D gases. We show that dipolar relaxation is modified when the atoms collide in reduced dimensionality at low magnetic field intensities, and that the corresponding dipolar relaxation rate parameter is reduced by a factor up to 7 compared to the 3D case. Finally, we study dipolar relaxation in presence of radio-frequency (rf) oscillating magnetic fields, and we show that both the output channel energy and the transition amplitude can be controlled by means of rf frequency and Rabi frequency.Comment: 25 pages, 17 figure

Multi-Objective Optimization Programs and their Application to Amine Absorption Process Design for Natural Gas Sweetening

This chapter presents three MS Excel programs, namely, EMOO (Excel based Multi-Objective Optimization), NDS (Non-Dominated Sorting) and PM (Performance Metrics) useful for Multi-Objective Optimization (MOO) studies. The EMOO program is for finding non-dominated solutions of a given MOO problem. It has both binary-coded and realcoded NSGA-II (Elitist Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm), and two termination criteria based on chi-squared test and steady state detection. The known/true Pareto-optimal front for the application problems is not available unlike that for benchmark problems. Hence, a procedure for obtaining known/true Pareto-optimal front is described in this chapter. The NDS program is for non-dominated sorting and crowding distance calculations of the non-dominated solutions obtained from several optimization runs using same or different MOO programs. The PM program can be used to calculate the values of performance metrics between the non-dominated solutions obtained using a MOO program and the true/known Pareto optimal front. It is useful for comparing the performance of MOO programs to find the non-dominated solutions. Finally, use of EMOO, NDS and PM programs is demonstrated on MOO of amine absorption process for natural gas sweetening

BIGRE: a low cross-talk integral field unit tailored for extrasolar planets imaging spectroscopy

Integral field spectroscopy (IFS) represents a powerful technique for the detection and characterization of extrasolar planets through high contrast imaging, since it allows to obtain simultaneously a large number of monochromatic images. These can be used to calibrate and then to reduce the impact of speckles, once their chromatic dependence is taken into account. The main concern in designing integral field spectrographs for high contrast imaging is the impact of the diffraction effects and the non-common path aberrations together with an efficient use of the detector pixels. We focus our attention on integral field spectrographs based on lenslet-arrays, discussing the main features of these designs: the conditions of appropriate spatial and spectral sampling of the resulting spectrograph's slit functions and their related cross-talk terms when the system works at the diffraction limit. We present a new scheme for the integral field unit (IFU) based on a dual-lenslet device (BIGRE), that solves some of the problems related to the classical TIGER design when used for such applications. We show that BIGRE provides much lower cross-talk signals than TIGER, allowing a more efficient use of the detector pixels and a considerable saving of the overall cost of a lenslet-based integral field spectrograph.Comment: 17 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

The Combined Quantification and Interpretation of Multiple Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging Metrics Enlightens Longitudinal Changes Compatible with Brain Repair in Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis Patients.

Quantitative and semi-quantitative MRI (qMRI) metrics provide complementary specificity and differential sensitivity to pathological brain changes compatible with brain inflammation, degeneration, and repair. Moreover, advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) metrics with overlapping elements amplify the true tissue-related information and limit measurement noise. In this work, we combined multiple advanced MRI parameters to assess focal and diffuse brain changes over 2 years in a group of early-stage relapsing-remitting MS patients. Thirty relapsing-remitting MS patients with less than 5 years disease duration and nine healthy subjects underwent 3T MRI at baseline and after 2 years including T1, T2, T2* relaxometry, and magnetization transfer imaging. To assess longitudinal changes in normal-appearing (NA) tissue and lesions, we used analyses of variance and Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Multivariate linear regression was used to assess the correlation between clinical outcome and multiparametric MRI changes in lesions and NA tissue. In patients, we measured a significant longitudinal decrease of mean T2 relaxation times in NA white matter (p = 0.005) and a decrease of T1 relaxation times in the pallidum (p < 0.05), which are compatible with edema reabsorption and/or iron deposition. No longitudinal changes in qMRI metrics were observed in controls. In MS lesions, we measured a decrease in T1 relaxation time (p-value < 2.2e-16) and a significant increase in MTR (p-value < 1e-6), suggesting repair mechanisms, such as remyelination, increased axonal density, and/or a gliosis. Last, the evolution of advanced MRI metrics-and not changes in lesions or brain volume-were correlated to motor and cognitive tests scores evolution (Adj-R(2) > 0.4, p < 0.05). In summary, the combination of multiple advanced MRI provided evidence of changes compatible with focal and diffuse brain repair at early MS stages as suggested by histopathological studies

Enhanced nonlinear spectral compression in fiber by external sinusoidal phase modulation

We propose a new, simple approach to enhance the spectral compression process arising from nonlinear pulse propagation in an optical fiber. We numerically show that an additional sinusoidal temporal phase modulation of the pulse enables efficient reduction of the intensity level of the side lobes in the spectrum that are produced by the mismatch between the initial linear negative chirp of the pulse and the self-phase modulation-induced nonlinear positive chirp. Remarkable increase of both the extent of spectrum narrowing and the quality of the compressed spectrum is afforded by the proposed approach across a wide range of experimentally accessible parameters