The Choice Between Implied Warranty and Tort Liability for Recovery of Pure Economic Loss in Contract-Torts : A Comparison of Judicial and Private Ordering in the Real Property Market

The Supreme Court\u27s decision in Winnipeg Condo. Corp. No. 36 v. Bird Construction expanded recovery for pure economic loss in tort by allowing a subsequent purchaser to recover the cost of repairing a dangerous defect arising out of negligence in the construction of a building. This article outlines the theoretical justifications for extended tort liability when the parties are linked by a contractual chain but are not in privity, and concludes that it is not possible to determine whether extended liability is desirable without considering the details of the market in question. A comparison between tort liability and the protection afforded by the warranties offered by the New Home Warranty Corporations across the country indicates that the private warranties offer a better trade-off between protection and cost than does tort liability. The article further argues that while the builder\u27s liability should be extended, it should be accomplished through a contractually implied third-party beneficiary warranty of fitness for habitation rather than through expansion of tort recovery for pure economic loss. Among other factors, the article considers the view that indeterminacy of recovery militates against expanded tort recovery and argues that indeterminacy per se is not as important as increased litigation and transaction costs that accompany expanded tort recovery

Discovery and Characterization of Novel Polyomaviruses in Humans

The family Polyomaviridae is comprised of small, double-stranded DNA viruses of approximately 5,000 base pairs. Two polyomaviruses are well-established human pathogens and cause significant morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised patients. These viruses were discovered in the 1970s, but the last seven years have seen an explosion of novel human polyomavirus discoveries. The work described here seeks to address two questions: Are there additional, novel polyomaviruses infecting humans? and Do these polyomaviruses cause disease in their human hosts? The discovery of an additional novel polyomavirus, MW polyomavirus (MWPyV), is described. MWPyV was discovered in the stool of a healthy child from Malawi but was subsequently detected from pediatric patients with diarrhea in St. Louis, Missouri. As a step toward determining the pathogenicity of WU polyomavirus (WUPyV) and KI polyomavirus (KIPyV) in humans, immunohistochemical studies were completed to identify their tissue and cell tropisms. Both viruses were detected in alveolar macrophages, and WUPyV was also detected in respiratory epithelial cells and in cells associated with mucin-producing cells in the trachea. In addition, KIPyV was detected in the spleen. The immunocompromised state of the patients studied raises important questions about the role of immunosuppression in the pathogenesis of WUPyV and KIPyV. Finally, this work details ultimately unsuccessful attempts to establish a cell culture system for WUPyV, which would have provided a means to study viral biology and disease causality. Overall, these studies further our understanding of human polyomavirus biology and the role of WUPyV and KIPyV in human disease and provide additional avenues for future research to further address these important questions

Demystifying Patent Holdup

Patent holdup can arise when circumstances enable a patent owner to extract a larger royalty ex post than it could have obtained in an arms length transaction ex ante. While the concept of patent holdup is familiar to scholars and practitioners—particularly in the context of standard-essential patent (SEP) disputes—the economic details are frequently misunderstood. For example, the popular assumption that switching costs (those required to switch from the infringing technology to an alternative) necessarily contribute to holdup is false in general, and will tend to overstate the potential for extracting excessive royalties. On the other hand, some commentaries mistakenly presume that large fixed costs are an essential ingredient of patent holdup, which understates the scope of the problem. In this Article, we clarify and distinguish the most basic economic factors that contribute to patent holdup. This casts light on various points of confusion arising in many commentaries on the subject. Path dependence—which can act to inflate the value of a technology simply because it was adopted first—is a useful concept for understanding the problem. In particular, patent holdup can be viewed as opportunistic exploitation of path dependence effects serving to inflate the value of a patented technology (relative to the alternatives) after it is adopted. This clarifies that factors contributing to holdup are not static, but rather consist in changes in economic circumstances over time. By breaking down the problem into its most basic parts, our analysis provides a useful blueprint for applying patent holdup theory in complex cases

You don’t know a person(’s taste) when you only know which genre they like: taste differences within five popular music genres based on sub-genres and sub-styles

A representative German sample (N = 2,086) was surveyed on their musical taste with a questionnaire that asked about their liking not only of a number of genres, but also of relevant sub-genres and -styles. Using Latent Profile Analysis to analyze sub-genre liking patterns, four to six distinct taste classes were found within groups of those n = 1,749 people who liked either European classical music, electronic dance music, metal, pop or rock based on their sub-genre ratings. Across genres, two types of taste classes emerged: one with three classes that differed in the degree of liking all sub-genres, another with one to three classes that were biased in their liking or disliking of easier and more mainstream variants of a genre as compared to harder and sophisticated ones. Logistic regression models revealed meaningful relationships of genre fan groups and within-genre taste classes with sociodemographic variables and BIG-5 personality traits. In sum, our results demonstrate meaningful taste differences within genres and show that these translate to differences in person-related variables as well. These findings challenge earlier genre-based conceptualizations of music tastes, since we find similar structures already on the sub-genres level. It also suggests that different reasons and factors underlie tastes for genres and sub-genres. Future studies should therefore ask about taste in a more nuanced way

Nuclear transport of single molecules: dwell times at the nuclear pore complex

The mechanism by which macromolecules are selectively translocated through the nuclear pore complex (NPC) is still essentially unresolved. Single molecule methods can provide unique information on topographic properties and kinetic processes of asynchronous supramolecular assemblies with excellent spatial and time resolution. Here, single-molecule far-field fluorescence microscopy was applied to the NPC of permeabilized cells. The nucleoporin Nup358 could be localized at a distance of 70 nm from POM121-GFP along the NPC axis. Binding sites of NTF2, the transport receptor of RanGDP, were observed in cytoplasmic filaments and central framework, but not nucleoplasmic filaments of the NPC. The dwell times of NTF2 and transportin 1 at their NPC binding sites were 5.8 ± 0.2 and 7.1 ± 0.2 ms, respectively. Notably, the dwell times of these receptors were reduced upon binding to a specific transport substrate, suggesting that translocation is accelerated for loaded receptor molecules. Together with the known transport rates, our data suggest that nucleocytoplasmic transport occurs via multiple parallel pathways within single NPCs

Multiorgan WU polyomavirus infection in bone marrow transplant recipient

WU polyomavirus (WUPyV) was detected in a bone marrow transplant recipient with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome who died in 2001. Crystalline lattices of polyomavirus-like particles were observed in the patient’s lung by electron microscopy. WUPyV was detected in the lung and other tissues by real-time quantitative PCR and identified in the lung and trachea by immunohistochemistry. A subset of WUPyV-positive cells in the lung had morphologic features of macrophages. Although the role of WUPyV as a human pathogen remains unclear, these results clearly demonstrate evidence for infection of respiratory tract tissues in this patient

The Effect of FRAND Commitments on Patent Remedies

This chapter addresses a special category of cases in which an asserted patent is, or has been declared to be, essential to the implementation of a collaboratively-developed voluntary consensus standard, and the holder of that patent has agreed to license it to implementers of the standard on terms that are fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND). In this chapter, we explore how the existence of such a FRAND commitment may affect a patent holder’s entitlement to monetary damages and injunctive relief. In addition to issues of patent law, remedies law and contract law, we consider the effect of competition law on this issue

CUREs in Biochemistry—Where We Are and Where We Should Go

Integration of research experience into classroom is an important and vital experience for all undergraduates. These course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have grown from independent instructor lead projects to large consortium driven experiences. The impact and importance of CUREs on students at all levels in biochemistry was the focus of a National Science Foundation funded think tank. The state of biochemistry CUREs and suggestions for moving biochemistry forward as well as a practical guide (supplementary material) are reported here