Leveraging Continuous Material Averaging for Inverse Electromagnetic Design

Inverse electromagnetic design has emerged as a way of efficiently designing active and passive electromagnetic devices. This maturing strategy involves optimizing the shape or topology of a device in order to improve a figure of merit--a process which is typically performed using some form of steepest descent algorithm. Naturally, this requires that we compute the gradient of a figure of merit which describes device performance, potentially with respect to many design variables. In this paper, we introduce a new strategy based on smoothing abrupt material interfaces which enables us to efficiently compute these gradients with high accuracy irrespective of the resolution of the underlying simulation. This has advantages over previous approaches to shape and topology optimization in nanophotonics which are either prone to gradient errors or place important constraints on the shape of the device. As a demonstration of this new strategy, we optimize a non-adiabatic waveguide taper between a narrow and wide waveguide. This optimization leads to a non-intuitive design with a very low insertion loss of only 0.041 dB at 1550 nm.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure

Patent Transfer And The Bundle of Sticks

In the age of the patent troll, patents are often licensed and transferred. A transferred patent may have been subject to multiple complex license agreements. It cannot be that such a transfer wipes the patent clean of all outstanding license agreements; the licensee must keep the license. But at the same time, it cannot be that the patent transferee becomes a party to a complex and sweeping license agreement – the contract – merely by virtue of acquiring one patent. This article attempts to separate the in personam aspects of a license agreement from its effects on the underlying in rem patent rights, using Hohfeld’s framework of jural relations and the “bundle of sticks” conception of property. A license agreement can diminish (but not add to) the bundle of in rem patent rights initially granted by the USPTO, and a new patent owner takes only the diminished bundle of rights upon transfer, given that one cannot transfer more than what one owns. The bundle theory can provide greater clarity regarding the extent to which licenses “run with the patent,” and also has implications for how patent transfer affects other doctrines such as patent exhaustion, FRAND obligations, prior user rights, and laches

SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu: The Statute is Hereby Clear

The Supreme doorkeeper has spoken: the statute is clear, and that\u27s the law

The Holding-Dicta Spectrum

The distinction between holding and dictum is often treated under a binary paradigm; either a proposition is binding holding, or unconstraining dictum. But the binary paradigm is too simplistic to adequately model our complex system of precedent. This article suggests an alternative spectrum paradigm where the constraining force of a precedent proposition is inversely correlated with its breadth. This article explains the spectrum approach, compares it with prevailing approaches, and evaluates some cases in light of the spectrum model. The spectrum framework has the potential to facilitate judicial candor and make the concepts of holding and dicta more consistently meaningful

Three great american disinflations

In this paper, we examine three famous episodes of deliberate deflation (or disinflation) in U.S. history, including episodes following the Civil War, World War I, and the Volcker disinflation of the early 1980s. These episodes were associated with widely divergent effects on the real economy, which we attribute both to differences in the policy actions undertaken, and to the transparency and credibility of the monetary authorities. We attempt to account for the salient features of each episode within the context of a stylized DSGE model. Our model simulations indicate how a more predictable policy of gradual deflation could have helped avoid the sharp post-WWI depression. But our analysis also suggests that the strong argument for gradualism under a transparent monetary regime becomes less persuasive if the monetary authority lacks credibility; in this case, an aggressive policy stance (as under Volcker) can play a useful signalling role by making a policy shift more apparent to private agents. JEL Classification: E31, E32, E5

The Holding-Dictum Spectrum

Presumably, the terms holding and dictum have some objective meaning. One would not say, “I do not agree with this statement, so it is dictum.” One might say, “This statement is dictum, so it is not binding.” So what, then, is dictum? More specifically, to what extent does the breadth of a generalization affect its status as holding or dictum

Patent Transfer and the Bundle of Rights

When patents subject to a license agreement are transferred, to what extent do the benefits and burdens of the license agreement run with the patent? Courts have stated that those aspects of the agreement relating to “actual use” of the patent or invention are encumbrances running with the transferred patent. But this doctrinal test is not consistently applied and is not up to the task of clearly and consistently delineating the extent to which patent license agreements run with transferred patents. Conceptualizing the patent as a bundle of Hohfeldian Rights to exclude, this article proposes a more coherent framework for analyzing the extent to which actions by a prior patent owner run with a transferred patent to affect the rights of subsequent owners. The patent owner, through a license agreement or other actions such as selling a patented article, may exchange sticks in the bundle for other forms of value, thus diminishing the size of the in rem bundle of rights. When a patent is transferred, what is transferred is whatever remains in the in rem patent bundle, while the in personam contract remains between the two signatories. Conceptualizing patent transfers in this way could add some degree of precision and clarity to the analysis of the effect of prior license agreements on transferred patents, and hopefully facilitate more coherent development of the law