PROPERTY LAW—THE IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY EDUCATION IN A KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

Entrepreneurs, inventors, and innovators can be faced with an overwhelming amount of information and guidance when they plan their business startup. One area that is often neglected is the business’s intellectual property. In fact, it is critical to attend to the protection of IP early in the startup process. Entrepreneurs and others need to know what to protect, as well as when and how to protect it. In the United States, IP accounts for thirty-eight percent of Gross Domestic Product, while IP and other intangible assets make up ninety percent of the market value of all S&P 500 companies. Increasingly, IP is arguably “the chief engine of wealth creation and economic growth in the world.” However, few people have exposure to a formal IP education. It is therefore vital that IP education be infused into educational curricula as widely as possible. If not, “any young person today who does not understand at least the basics of intellectual property—and its value and role in science, business, arts, and the professions—will find him or herself at a distinct disadvantage in the world of tomorrow.” In an effort to close this “IP education gap,” national organizations, such as the Michelson Institute for Intellectual Property and the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship are working to support educators to infuse IP education into a broad range of educational curricula. Two authors of this Article, Professors Diane Sabato and John Diffley of Springfield Technical Community College, are currently serving as Michelson IP Educators in Residence and working to bring IP education to community college students through business, honors, and history courses. Additionally, and as part of the IP EIR Program, Professors Sabato and Diffley partnered with a leading IP law practitioner, and this Article’s third author, Attorney Richard H. Kosakowski, to bring his significant expertise to community college audiences. In this Article, the authors will discuss the importance of IP to economic growth in general and in the context of U.S. history. The authors then discuss why IP education and knowledge are more important than ever for entrepreneurs, inventors, and innovators. The history and current state of IP education are examined, as are current efforts to infuse IP education into the community college education. Finally, Attorney Kosakowski discusses his experiences with IP law and offers best practices for protecting one’s IP

Pressure assisted flash sintering of Mn-Co based spinel coatings for solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs)

Pressure assisted flash sintering was used to process Mn-Co-Cu based spinel coatings, electrophoretically deposited on a Crofer22APU interconnect. This method resulted in highly dense coatings, heat-treated for only a short duration (200 °C/min). The high heating rate promoted Cu modified Mn-Co spinel and limited the formation of a Cr-oxide scale on the Crofer22APU substrate. Flash sintering was found to be a promising and time efficient sintering technique to overcome some of the issues related to low coating density and oxide scale formation in solid oxide electrolysis cell conditions

Glass-ceramic sealants for SOEC: Thermal characterization and electrical resistivity in dual atmosphere

A Ba-based glass-ceramic sealant is designed and tested for solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) applications. A suitable SiO2/BaO ratio is chosen in order to obtain BaSi2O5 crystalline phase and subsequently favorable thermo-mechanical properties of the glass-ceramic sealant. The glass is analyzed in terms of thermal, thermo-mechanical, chemical, and electrical behavior. Crofer22APU-sealant-Crofer22APU joined samples are tested for 2000 h at 850 ◦C in a dual atmosphere test rig having reducing atmosphere of H2:H2O 50/50 (mol%) and under the applied voltage of 1.6 V. In order to simulate the SOEC dynamic working conditions, thermal cycles are performed during the long-term electrical resistivity test. The glass-ceramic shows promising behavior in terms of high density, suitable CTE, and stable electrical resistivity (106–107 Ω cm) under SOEC conditions. The SEM-EDS post mortem analysis confirms excellent chemical and thermo-mechanical compatibility of the glass-ceramic with Crofer22APU

Demonstration, testing, and evaluation of in situ heating of soil. Final report, Volume 2, Appendices A to E

This is a final report presented in two volumes. Volume I contains the technical report and Volume II contains appendices with background information and data. In this project approximately 300 cubic yards of clayey soil containing a low concentration plume of volatile organic chemicals was heated in situ by the application of electrical energy. It was shown that as a result of heating the effective permeability of soil to air flow was increased such that in situ soil vapor extraction could be performed. The initial permeability of soil was so low that the soil gas flow rate was immeasurably small even at high vacuum levels. It was demonstrated that the mass flow rate of the volatile organic chemicals was enhanced in the recovered soil gas as a result of heating. When scaled up, this process can be used for the environmental clean up and restoration of DOE sites contaminated with VOC`s and other organic chemicals. Although it may be applied to many types of soil formations, it is particularly attractive for low permeability clayey soil where conventional in situ venting techniques are limited by air flow

Mn-Co spinel coatings on Crofer 22 APU by electrophoretic deposition: Up scaling, performance in SOFC stack at 850 °C and compositional modifications

Ceramic coatings for metallic interconnects play a key role in limiting corrosion and chromium evaporation in solid oxide cells. This study presents the upscaling of the electrophoretic deposition (EPD) technique to process Mn-Co spinels on real-dimension Crofer 22 APU interconnects and the test in a SOFC stack. Area specific resistance of long-term test conducted for 5000 h at 850 °C demonstrated that two-steps sintering has a significant influence on the coating performance; an area specific resistance degradation rate of 0.5 mΩ cm2 kh−1 is recorded. Stack test, operated in fuel cell mode at 850 °C for 3000 h under application of 227 mA/cm², including 5 thermal cycles, demonstrated the effectiveness of the electrophoretically deposited Mn-Co spinel in limiting the oxide scale growth on the Crofer 22 APU. An advanced post mortem investigation showed the effectiveness of the EPD ceramic coating, even when considering different and complex surfaces of the Crofer 22 APU

Competing for the Platform: How Organized Interests affect Party Positioning in the United States

What explains which groups are included in a party coalition in any given election cycle? Recent advances in political party theory suggest that policy demanders comprise parties, and that the composition of a party coalition varies from election to election. We theorize three conditions under which parties articulate an interest group?s preferred positions in its quadrennial platform: when groups are ideologically proximate to the party median, when groups display party loyalty, and when groups are flush with resources. Using computer-assisted content analysis on a unique and rich data source, we examine three cycles of testimony that 80 organized groups provided to the Democratic Party. The analysis compares group requests with the content of Democratic and Republican National Committee platforms in 1996, 2000, and 2004. Results show that parties reward loyal groups and those that are ideologically proximate to the party, but offer no confirmation of a resource effect

Search for squarks and gluinos in events with isolated leptons, jets and missing transverse momentum at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for supersymmetry in final states containing at least one isolated lepton (electron or muon), jets and large missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider are reported. The search is based on proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy s√=8 TeV collected in 2012, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20 fb−1. No significant excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed. Limits are set on supersymmetric particle masses for various supersymmetric models. Depending on the model, the search excludes gluino masses up to 1.32 TeV and squark masses up to 840 GeV. Limits are also set on the parameters of a minimal universal extra dimension model, excluding a compactification radius of 1/R c = 950 GeV for a cut-off scale times radius (ΛR c) of approximately 30