The Externalization of Domestic Regulation: Intellectual Property Rights Reform in a Global Era

Intellectual property rights (IPR) issues in the software, biotechnology, and semiconductor industries exemplify the pressure that new technologies and international competition are placing on domestic and international regulatory systems. Traditional patent and copyright rules cannot easily accommodate any of these technologies. At the same time, the high costs of research and development, relative ease of replication, and global markets characteristic of these technologies heighten the importance of both domestic and foreign IPR protection. In the context of rapidly changing technological conditions, borderless markets, and inflexible international regimes, national policymakers face a political dilemma: how to accommodate new technologies at home, encourage similar accommodation abroad, and do both without undermining either long-standingd omestic IPR arrangementso r the internationalp atent and copyright regimes. This article reviews the different strategies of externalization associated with IPR reform in the software, biotechnology, and semiconductor industries. Variations across these cases indicate that fundamentally different technological, market, and political conditions can lead to different strategies for equilibrating incompatible and highly contested domestic and international regulatory rules

Caveats of chronic exogenous corticosterone treatments in adolescent rats and effects on anxiety-like and depressive behavior and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis function

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Administration of exogenous corticosterone is an effective preclinical model of depression, but its use has involved primarily adult rodents. Using two different procedures of administration drawn from the literature, we explored the possibility of exogenous corticosterone models in adolescence, a time of heightened risk for mood disorders in humans.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In experiment 1, rats were injected with 40 mg/kg corticosterone or vehicle from postnatal days 30 to 45 and compared with no injection controls on behavior in the elevated plus maze (EPM) and the forced swim test (FST). Experiment 2 consisted of three treatments administered to rats from postnatal days 30 to 45 or as adults (days 70 to 85): either corticosterone (400 μg/ml) administered in the drinking water along with 2.5% ethanol, 2.5% ethanol or water only. In addition to testing on EPM, blood samples after the FST were obtained to measure plasma corticosterone. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and alpha level of <it>P </it>< 0.05 were used to determine statistical significance.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In experiment 1, corticosterone treatment of adolescent rats increased anxiety in the EPM and decreased immobility in the FST compared to no injection control rats. However, vehicle injected rats were similar to corticosterone injected rats, suggesting that adolescent rats may be highly vulnerable to stress of injection. In experiment 2, the intake of treated water, and thus doses delivered, differed for adolescents and adults, but there were no effects of treatment on behavior in the EPM or FST. Rats that had ingested corticosterone had reduced corticosterone release after the FST. Ethanol vehicle also affected corticosterone release compared to those ingesting water only, but differently for adolescents than for adults.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results indicate that several challenges must be overcome before the exogenous corticosterone model can be used effectively in adolescents.</p

The Externalization of Domestic Regulation: Intellectual Property Rights Reform in a Global Era

Intellectual property rights (IPR) issues in the software, biotechnology, and semiconductor industries exemplify the pressure that new technologies and international competition are placing on domestic and international regulatory systems. Traditional patent and copyright rules cannot easily accommodate any of these technologies. At the same time, the high costs of research and development, relative ease of replication, and global markets characteristic of these technologies heighten the importance of both domestic and foreign IPR protection. In the context of rapidly changing technological conditions, borderless markets, and inflexible international regimes, national policymakers face a political dilemma: how to accommodate new technologies at home, encourage similar accommodation abroad, and do both without undermining either long-standingd omestic IPR arrangementso r the internationalp atent and copyright regimes. This article reviews the different strategies of externalization associated with IPR reform in the software, biotechnology, and semiconductor industries. Variations across these cases indicate that fundamentally different technological, market, and political conditions can lead to different strategies for equilibrating incompatible and highly contested domestic and international regulatory rules

Transnational learning structures in multinational firms: organizational context and national embeddedness

The role of national institutional context is often overlooked in analyses of learning behaviour in multinational organizations. Drawing on arguments from institutional theory and learning theory we consider the organizational contingencies, and the institutional context in which these are embedded, in explaining the use of structures to support learning across national borders. It is hypothesized that country of origin effects on subsidiary learning structures are mediated by two organizational contingencies, namely transnational human resource management governance structures and subsidiary global research and development expertise. To test this, structural equation modelling is used on a dataset of 292 foreign (including Japanese, US, French, German, Nordic) and home-owned subsidiaries operating in the UK. The results confirmed the hypothesized institutional effects. The evidence suggests that understanding the interaction between institutional and firm-level context is important in providing a fuller explanation of the types of learning structures subsidiaries are likely to engage with