Venue One Year After \u3ci\u3eTC Heartland\u3c/i\u3e: An Early Empirical Assessment of the Major Changes in Patent Filing

In its May 2017 decision in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC, the Supreme Court reined in the Federal Circuit’s permissive venue standard, which had fueled the rise of the Eastern District of Texas as the busiest patent trial court in the nation and the preferred filing location of patent assertion entities (PAEs), derisively known as patent trolls. While the new limits of permissible venue in patent cases continue to be demarcated in the lower courts, sufficient time has passed since TC Heartland to begin to investigate the impact of the decision across a number of dimensions. Accordingly, in this study I examine changes in the volume of cases filed nationally and in leading districts by comparing the numbers one year before versus one year after the decision. Further, I separately study changes in the location, volume, and distribution of PAE and practicing entity litigation. Finally, I examine how plaintiff adherence to the new venue standard in TC Heartland has changed defendant connections to the districts where they are sued. As others have predicted, I find evidence that the largest shift in patent litigation has been from the Eastern District of Texas to the District of Delaware. Specifically, 72 percent more patent cases were filed in the District of Delaware and 68 percent fewer cases were filed in the Eastern District of Texas the year after TC Heartland compared with the year before the decision and the decline in filings in the Eastern District of Texas is entirely attributable to PAEs. Further, changes in filing trends before and after TC Heartland indicate that between 320 and 780 fewer PAE lawsuits were filed the year after than would have been the case had the Supreme Court not restricted venue. Had these cases been filed, they would have comprised between fourteen and thirty-three percent of PAE filings for the year. Closer defendant connections to the courts where cases were filed post-TC Heartland suggest not only that PAEs perceived significant benefits from filing in the Eastern District of Texas and other pro-plaintiff venues, but also that many PAEs believe they are less likely to succeed on defendants’ home turf. Comparing the year before with the year after TC Heartland, the share of PAE suits filed in the court containing a defendant’s principal place of business jumped from nine to thirty-two percent and the share filed where a defendant is incorporated spiked from ten to forty-eight percent

Do Economic Downturns Dampen Patent Litigation?

Recent studies estimate that the economic impact of U.S. patent litigation may be as large as $80 billion per year and that the overall rate of U.S. patent litigation has been growing rapidly over the past twenty years. And yet, the relationship of the macroeconomy to patent litigation rates has never been studied in any rigorous fashion. This lacuna is notable given that there are two opposing theories among lawyers regarding the effect of economic downturns on patent litigation. One camp argues for a substitution theory, holding that patent litigation should increase in a downturn because potential plaintiffs have a greater incentive to exploit patent assets relative to other investments. The other camp posits a capital constraint theory that holds that the decrease in cash flow and available capital disincentivizes litigation. Analyzing quarterly patent infringement suit filing data from 1971-2009 using a time-series vector autoregression (VAR) model, we show that economic downturns have significantly affected patent litigation rates. (To aid other researchers in testing and extending our analyses, we have made our entire dataset available online.) Importantly, we find that these effects have changed over time. In particular, patent litigation has become more dependent on credit availability in a downturn. We hypothesize that such changes resulted from an increase in use of contingent-fee attorneys by patent plaintiffs and the rise of non-practicing entities (NPEs), which unlike most operating companies, generally fund their lawsuits directly from outside capital sources. Over roughly the last twenty years, we find that macroeconomic conditions have affected patent litigation in contrasting ways. Decreases in GDP (particularly economy-wide investment) are correlated with significant increases in patent litigation and countercyclical economic trends. On the other hand, increases in T-bill and real interest rates as well as increases in economy-wide financial risk are generally correlated with significant decreases in patent suits, leading to procyclical trends. Thus, the specific nature of a downturn predicts whether patent litigation rates will tend to rise or fall

TIPS: a system for automated image-based phenotyping of maize tassels

Abstract Background The maize male inflorescence (tassel) produces pollen necessary for reproduction and commercial grain production of maize. The size of the tassel has been linked to factors affecting grain yield, so understanding the genetic control of tassel architecture is an important goal. Tassels are fragile and deform easily after removal from the plant, necessitating rapid measurement of any shape characteristics that cannot be retained during storage. Some morphological characteristics of tassels such as curvature and compactness are difficult to quantify using traditional methods, but can be quantified by image-based phenotyping tools. These constraints necessitate the development of an efficient method for capturing natural-state tassel morphology and complementary automated analytical methods that can quickly and reproducibly quantify traits of interest such as height, spread, and branch number. Results This paper presents the Tassel Image-based Phenotyping System (TIPS), which provides a platform for imaging tassels in the field immediately following removal from the plant. TIPS consists of custom methods that can quantify morphological traits from profile images of freshly harvested tassels acquired with a standard digital camera in a field-deployable light shelter. Correlations between manually measured traits (tassel weight, tassel length, spike length, and branch number) and image-based measurements ranged from 0.66 to 0.89. Additional tassel characteristics quantified by image analysis included some that cannot be quantified manually, such as curvature, compactness, fractal dimension, skeleton length, and perimeter. TIPS was used to measure tassel phenotypes of 3530 individual tassels from 749 diverse inbred lines that represent the diversity of tassel morphology found in modern breeding and academic research programs. Repeatability ranged from 0.85 to 0.92 for manually measured phenotypes, from 0.77 to 0.83 for the same traits measured by image-based methods, and from 0.49 to 0.81 for traits that can only be measured by image analysis. Conclusions TIPS allows morphological features of maize tassels to be quantified automatically, with minimal disturbance, at a scale that supports population-level studies. TIPS is expected to accelerate the discovery of associations between genetic loci and tassel morphology characteristics, and can be applied to maize breeding programs to increase productivity with lower resource commitment

Binding and activation of host plasminogen on the surface of Francisella tularensis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Francisella tularensis </it>(FT) is a gram-negative facultative intracellular coccobacillus and is the causal agent of a life-threatening zoonotic disease known as tularemia. Although FT preferentially infects phagocytic cells of the host, recent evidence suggests that a significant number of bacteria can be found extracellularly in the plasma fraction of the blood during active infection. This observation suggests that the interaction between FT and host plasma components may play an important role in survival and dissemination of the bacterium during the course of infection. Plasminogen (PLG) is a protein zymogen that is found in abundance in the blood of mammalian hosts. A number of both gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial pathogens have the ability to bind to PLG, giving them a survival advantage by increasing their ability to penetrate extracellular matrices and cross tissue barriers.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We show that PLG binds to the surface of FT and that surface-bound PLG can be activated to plasmin in the presence of tissue PLG activator <it>in vitro</it>. In addition, using Far-Western blotting assays coupled with proteomic analyses of FT outer membrane preparations, we have identified several putative PLG-binding proteins of FT.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The ability of FT to acquire surface bound PLG that can be activated on its surface may be an important virulence mechanism that results in an increase in initial infectivity, survival, and/or dissemination of this bacterium <it>in vivo</it>.</p

The global energy balance of Titan

The global energy budget of planets and their moons is a critical factor to influence the climate change on these objects. Here we report the first measurement of the global emitted power of Titan. Long-term (2004–2010) observations conducted by the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) onboard Cassini reveal that the total emitted power by Titan is (2.84 ± 0.01) × 10^(14) watts. Together with previous measurements of the global absorbed solar power of Titan, the CIRS measurements indicate that the global energy budget of Titan is in equilibrium within measurement error. The uncertainty in the absorbed solar energy places an upper limit on the energy imbalance of 6.0%

Contaminants of Emerging Concern as a Tool to Differentiate Bacterial Contamination from Human Activity

Bacterial and nutrient contamination of streams and marine water effect many areas around the Salish Sea. Identifying and correcting the sources of this pollution can be a challenging task. This project investigated using a suite of chemicals known as Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CEC) to differentiate between human-associated sources such as sewage or farm runoff, and those coming from natural sources like wildlife. These CEC are chemicals which include medicines, herbicides, and compounds commonly consumed by humans. Advances in analytical methods over the last decade allow these compounds to be detected at very low concentrations (ng/L) in surface water samples. Surface water impacted by human activity may contain CEC that could be used to identify likely sources. To test this hypothesis, sampling was conducted under a collaborative partnership between the Kitsap Public Health District, and University of Washington Center for Urban Waters. Sites were selected to represent locations affected by known failing septic systems, agricultural run off, some unknown sources, and background controls. Samples were analyzed for a suite of 20 CEC compounds, as well as fecal coliform bacteria, nitrogen, and phosphorous. The results indicate that CEC in the environment can be highly variable, depending on the type of source, transport pathway, and site conditions. Some compounds are persistent and widespread, while others are rarely detected. Individual CEC compounds used by themselves are probably not suitable to differentiate pollution from human activites. However, several compounds used together, such as ibuprofen, acetominophen, and metabolites of caffeine and nicotine show promising correlation with human sources of bacterial pollution. The value of other CEC as source tracking tools may depend on using them in combination, or in comparison to background concentrations. NOTE: Another abstract based on this sampling project has been submitted for the session on Occurrence and Impacts of Contaminants of Emerging Concern. (Paper#236) This abstract is for an oral presentation in the Water Pollution Identification & Correction session