Preliminary Injunctive Relief in Patent Cases: Repairing Irreparable Harm

Unlike a permanent injunction, which is an equitable remedy awarded to an injured party, a preliminary injunction is a form of interlocutory relief that is imposed by a court to preserve the status quo during litigation. In patent cases decided since (and often before) the Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in eBay v. MercExchange, courts have applied a four-factor test when considering the issuance of a permanent injunction. A similar test has evolved for preliminary injunctions, following the Court’s decision in Winter v. NRDC. Both the eBay and Winter tests rely heavily on whether the patentee is likely to suffer “irreparable” harm if an injunction is not granted. Yet despite the very different statutory bases and underlying reasoning for preliminary versus permanent injunctions, almost no scholarly attention or judicial reasoning has been devoted to an analysis of the meaning of irreparable harm in the context of preliminary injunctions. In order to gain a better understanding of the information that courts consider when deciding motions for preliminary injunctions, we collected data from 211 published district court opinions in patent cases decided between 2013 and 2020 in which a preliminary injunction was sought. Based on our findings, as well as recent opinions of the Federal Circuit, we find that much uncertainty and lack of clarity surrounding preliminary injunctive relief can be reduced, or eliminated, by explicit recognition that irreparable harm has (or should have) a certain meaning, and that meaning is not the same as harm. We propose a new four-factor test for irreparable harm when assessing the issuance of preliminary injunctions in patent cases. That test provides that to be considered irreparable, harm should be that which, in the absence of an injunction, 1) would unduly disrupt the status quo, 2) is imminent and likely to occur, 3) is causally linked to the alleged infringement, and 4) unlikely to result in payment of adequate compensation. We believe that the application of this new test will make the preliminary injunction analysis more certain and economically sensible, and better fitted to achieve its stated statutory goals

Gesture use in children with autism spectrum disorder: a scoping review

Purpose This study reviewed the literature examining type and frequency of gesture use in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in comparison to other populations. The findings can inform future studies and programs targeting the use of gestures as an early indicator of ASD. Methods A six step search procedure was utilized to identify all articles exploring gesture use in children with ASD in comparison to other populations. Articles meeting inclusion criteria were double coded by the investigators with 97% agreement. Results examining type and frequency of gesture were synthesized and three common themes were identified: comparison group(s), age of participants with ASD, and gesture terminology. Results A total of 32 studies met inclusion criteria for this study. Of these studies, nine exclusively measured type of gesture, 17 exclusively measured frequency, and 6 measured both type and frequency. Results indicate that children with ASD used different types and frequency of gesture in comparison to other populations. The most studied age range was 4–5 years and most studies used typically developing children as the comparison group. Gesture terminology and definition were extremely variable. Conclusions Children with ASD are using different types and frequencies of gesture when compared to other populations. More research including younger and more diverse populations is needed to translate these findings into clinical practice. Additionally, there is a need for more consistent use of gesture terminology and definition

Refining best practices for the diagnosis of autism: A comparison between individual healthcare practitioner diagnosis and transdisciplinary assessment.

The purpose of this study is to compare the diagnostic decision-making of individual healthcare practitioners against that of a transdisciplinary team. Despite national recognition of transdisciplinary assessment as the gold standard diagnostic approach, autism is most frequently diagnosed by individuals working independently in a variety of disciplines. The current study examined how closely these individual practitioners make diagnoses matching that of a transdisciplinary team. Twenty professionals from five different disciplines viewed videotape clips of fifteen children previously assessed by a transdisciplinary team. Results confirmed that individual healthcare practitioners matched the transdisciplinary team diagnosis on average only 65.6% of the time. Pediatricians were the least accurate diagnosticians compared to the transdisciplinary team with an accuracy rate of only 59.8%. Implications of these results are discussed with respect to the ways in which team transdisciplinary assessments overcome the limitations of individual practitioner diagnosis

Relationship Between Supervisors\u27 Servant Leadership and Police Officers Job Satisfaction

Recent police killings of unarmed African Americans in the United States and the subsequent protests and demonstrations against police brutality have resulted in more focus on the importance of collaborative relationships between law enforcement agencies and their communities. This quantitative correlational research study was conducted in one southern United States police department that incorporated a servant leadership philosophy, including its leaders being publicly heralded for their servant leadership practices that positively impacted its relationship with its community. The study examined if a relationship existed between perceived servant leadership of law enforcement leaders and line police officers’ job satisfaction. The study’s participants n=31 completed the Servant Leadership Scale to measure servant leadership characteristics and Job Descriptive Index to measure employee job satisfaction. Results indicated a statistically significant relationship between servant leadership and employee job satisfaction of the police officers in the department

Percolation and jamming in random sequential adsorption of linear segments on square lattice

We present the results of study of random sequential adsorption of linear segments (needles) on sites of a square lattice. We show that the percolation threshold is a nonmonotonic function of the length of the adsorbed needle, showing a minimum for a certain length of the needles, while the jamming threshold decreases to a constant with a power law. The ratio of the two thresholds is also nonmonotonic and it remains constant only in a restricted range of the needles length. We determine the values of the correlation length exponent for percolation, jamming and their ratio

Temperature-modulated solution-based synthesis of copper oxide nanostructures for glucose sensing

Glucose sensors are widely applied in society as an effective way to diagnose and control diabetes by monitoring the blood glucose level. With advantages in stability and efficiency in glucose detection, non-enzymatic glucose sensors are gradually replacing their enzymatic counterparts and copper(ii) oxide (CuO) is a leading material. However, previous work extensively shows that even if the synthesis of CuO nanostructures is performed under nominally similar conditions, entirely different nanostructured products are obtained, resulting in varying physical and chemical properties of the final product, thereby leading to a differing performance in glucose detection. This work investigates the temperature dependence of a wet chemical precipitation synthesis for CuO nanostructures with the resulting samples showing selectivity for glucose in electrochemical tests. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) demonstrate that all products are predominantly CuO, with some contribution from Cu(OH)2 and other surface species varying across synthesis temperatures. The most important change with increasing synthesis temperature is that the overall nanostructure size changes and the morphology shifts from nanoneedles to nanoparticles between 65 and 70 °C. This work helps to understand the critical relationship between synthesis temperature and final nanostructure and can explain the seemingly random nanostructures observed in the literature. The variations are key to controlling sensor performance and ultimately offering further development in copper oxide-based glucose sensors