Checking the Staats: How Long Is Too Long to Give Adequate Public Notice in Broadening Reissue Patent Applications?

A classic property rights question looms large in the field of patent law: where do the rights of inventors end and the rights of the public begin? The right of inventors to modify the scope of their claimed inventions, even after the patent issues, is in direct tension with the concepts of public notice and the public domain. The Patent Act currently permits broadening of claims so long as a reissue application demonstrating intent to broaden is filed within two years of the original patent issue. Over the years, however, this relatively straightforward statutory provision has sparked numerous disputes over its meaning and application. On September 8, 2011, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit heard oral arguments or In re Staats. In this case, Apple Computer, Inc. appeals the rejection of a continuation reissue patent application. The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences rejected the application on the grounds that Apple attempted to broaden the scope of its patent claims in a manner not “foreseeable” more than eight years after the patent first issued. Apple contends that the language of the statute and prior case law permit its interpretation, and the application should be allowed in the interest of innovation. This issue is hardly a new one—this submission highlights nearly 140 years of case law, legislative history, and statutory shaping pertaining to broadening reissues. We analyze the issues raised in the briefs from Staats, as well as the oral arguments. Finally, we discuss from a practitioner’s perspective what the Federal Circuit could do—and should do—in the field of broadening reissues

"The War for the Fare": How Driver Compensation Affects Bus System Performance

Two systems of bus driver compensation exist in Santiago, Chile. Most drivers are paid per passenger transported, while a second system compensates other drivers with a fixed wage. Compared with fixed-wage drivers, per-passenger drivers have incentives to engage in "La Guerra por el Boleto" ("The War for the Fare"), in which drivers change their driving patterns to compete for passengers. This paper takes advantage of a natural experiment provided by the coexistence of these two compensation schemes on similar routes in the same city. Using data on intervals between bus arrivals, we find that the fixed-wage contract leads to more bunching of buses, and hence longer average passenger wait times. The per-passenger drivers are assisted by a group of independent information intermediaries called "sapos" who earn their living by standing at bus stops, recording arrival times, and selling the information to subsequent drivers who drive past. We find that a typical bus passenger in Santiago waits roughly 10% longer for a bus on a fixed-wage route relative to an incentive-contract route. However, the incentives also lead drivers to drive noticeably more aggressively, causing approximately 67% more accidents per kilometer driven. Our results have implications for the design of incentives in public transportation systems.

Inositol phosphatase SHIP1 is a primary target of miR-155

MicroRNA-155 (miR-155) has emerged as a critical regulator of immune cell development, function, and disease. However, the mechanistic basis for its impact on the hematopoietic system remains largely unresolved. Because miRNAs function by repressing specific mRNAs through direct 3′UTR interactions, we have searched for targets of miR-155 implicated in the regulation of hematopoiesis. In the present study, we identify Src homology-2 domain-containing inositol 5-phosphatase 1 (SHIP1) as a direct target of miR-155, and, using gain and loss of function approaches, show that miR-155 represses SHIP1 through direct 3′UTR interactions that have been highly conserved throughout evolution. Repression of endogenous SHIP1 by miR-155 occurred following sustained over-expression of miR-155 in hematopoietic cells both in vitro and in vivo, and resulted in increased activation of the kinase Akt during the cellular response to LPS. Furthermore, SHIP1 was also repressed by physiologically regulated miR-155, which was observed in LPS-treated WT versus miR-155−/− primary macrophages. In mice, specific knockdown of SHIP1 in the hematopoietic system following retroviral delivery of a miR-155-formatted siRNA against SHIP1 resulted in a myeloproliferative disorder, with striking similarities to that observed in miR-155-expressing mice. Our study unveils a molecular link between miR-155 and SHIP1 and provides evidence that repression of SHIP1 is an important component of miR-155 biology

Constructing a gazebo: supporting teamwork in a tightly coupled, distributed task in virtual reality

Many tasks require teamwork. Team members may work concurrently, but there must be some occasions of coming together. Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) allow distributed teams to come together across distance to share a task. Studies of CVE systems have tended to focus on the sense of presence or copresence with other people. They have avoided studying close interaction between us-ers, such as the shared manipulation of objects, because CVEs suffer from inherent network delays and often have cumbersome user interfaces. Little is known about the ef-fectiveness of collaboration in tasks requiring various forms of object sharing and, in particular, the concurrent manipu-lation of objects. This paper investigates the effectiveness of supporting teamwork among a geographically distributed group in a task that requires the shared manipulation of objects. To complete the task, users must share objects through con-current manipulation of both the same and distinct at-tributes. The effectiveness of teamwork is measured in terms of time taken to achieve each step, as well as the impression of users. The effect of interface is examined by comparing various combinations of walk-in cubic immersive projection technology (IPT) displays and desktop devices

Calibration of Computational Models with Categorical Parameters and Correlated Outputs via Bayesian Smoothing Spline ANOVA

It has become commonplace to use complex computer models to predict outcomes in regions where data does not exist. Typically these models need to be calibrated and validated using some experimental data, which often consists of multiple correlated outcomes. In addition, some of the model parameters may be categorical in nature, such as a pointer variable to alternate models (or submodels) for some of the physics of the system. Here we present a general approach for calibration in such situations where an emulator of the computationally demanding models and a discrepancy term from the model to reality are represented within a Bayesian Smoothing Spline (BSS) ANOVA framework. The BSS-ANOVA framework has several advantages over the traditional Gaussian Process, including ease of handling categorical inputs and correlated outputs, and improved computational efficiency. Finally this framework is then applied to the problem that motivated its design; a calibration of a computational fluid dynamics model of a bubbling fluidized which is used as an absorber in a CO2 capture system

Hard x-ray polarimetry with the Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI)

Although designed primarily as a hard X-ray imager and spectrometer, the Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) is also capable of measuring the polarization of hard X-rays (20-100 keV) from solar flares. This capability arises from the inclusion of a small unobstructed Be scattering element that is strategically located within the cryostat that houses the array of nine germanium detectors. The Ge detectors are segmented, with both a front and rear active volume. Low energy photons (below about 100 keV) can reach a rear segment of a Ge detector only indirectly, by scattering. Low energy photons from the Sun have a direct path to the Be and have a high probability of Compton scattering into a rear segment of a Ge detector. The azimuthal distribution of these scattered photons carries with it a signature of the linear polarization of the incident flux. Sensitivity estimates, based on simulations and in-flight background measurements, indicate that a 20-100 keV polarization sensitivity of less than a few percent can be achieved for X-class flares