Policy Implications of Weak Patent Rights

Patents vary substantially in the degree of protection provided against unauthorized imitation. In this chapter we explore a range of work addressing the economic and policy implications of weak patents--patents that have a significant probability of being overturned or being circumvented relatively easily---on innovation and disclosure incentives, antitrust policy, and organizational incentives and entrepreneurial activity. Weak patents cause firms to rely more heavily on secrecy. Thus, the competitive environment is characterized by private information about the extent of the innovator\u27s know-how. In such an environment weak patents increase the likelihood of imitation and infringement, reduce the amount of knowledge publicly disclosed, and potentially reduce the incentives to innovate. The discussion also highlights some implications of weak patents for antitrust policy. Weak patent rights increase the likelihood of patent litigation over commercially valuable patents and raise the specter of anticompetitive settlements. Encouraging the antitrust agencies to refer some patents for re-examination by the patent office would facilitate investigation of potentially anticompetitive IP settlements. Finally, we note some implications for weak property rights in settings involving employee-inventors and employee misuse of confidential information. In the former case an increase in the strength of legal property rights such as patents reduces the employer\u27s ability to prevent employees departing with valuable know-how, in part because a stronger property right increases the value of the employee\u27s start-up option. In the latter case, an increase in legal penalties for breach of confidentiality has the expected effect of decreasing such occurrences

Equivalent circuit modelling of coplanar waveguide InP electro-optic phase modulators

Wider bandwidth, energy-efficient Mach-Zehnder modulators are required to meet ever-increasing performance requirements in fibre-optic communications. To push beyond the state-of-the-art device performance, better tools for design optimisation are highly warranted. Currently, the most accurate simulation tools are either formed empirically or are computationally intensive, limiting opportunities for extended design space exploration. In this work, we investigate utilising a parametric and analytical traveling-wave model for the design of Mach-Zehnder modulators in coplanar waveguide geometry. Vitally, the model incorporates both optical and electrical mechanisms and emerges from physical parameters such as layer thicknesses, materials properties, mask feature dimensions, and bias voltage. Evaluating the design from such parameters allows for holistic analyses of the design, elucidating the key tuneable parameters for improved performance. This is demonstrated utilising a factor of 3000 less computational time than traditional, finite element method, techniques to investigate the small-signal modulation bandwidth of the Mach-Zehnder modulators for an indicative set of 25 distinct parameters with varied mask design feature, epitaxy growth control, and load impedance

Immunogenic Cell Death Amplified by Co-localized Adjuvant Delivery for Cancer Immunotherapy

Despite their potential, conventional whole-cell cancer vaccines prepared by freeze-thawing or irradiation have shown limited therapeutic efficacy in clinical trials. Recent studies have indicated that cancer cells treated with certain chemotherapeutics, such as mitoxantrone, can undergo immunogenic cell death (ICD) and initiate antitumor immune responses. However, it remains unclear how to exploit ICD for cancer immunotherapy. Here, we present a new material-based strategy for converting immunogenically dying tumor cells into a powerful platform for cancer vaccination and demonstrate their therapeutic potential in murine models of melanoma and colon carcinoma. We have generated immunogenically dying tumor cells surface-modified with adjuvant-loaded nanoparticles. Dying tumor cells laden with adjuvant nanodepots efficiently promote activation and antigen cross-presentation by dendritic cells in vitro and elicit robust antigen-specific CD8α+ T-cells in vivo. Furthermore, whole tumor-cell vaccination combined with immune checkpoint blockade leads to complete tumor regression in 78% of CT26 tumor-bearing mice and establishes long-term immunity against tumor recurrence. Our strategy presented here may open new doors to "personalized" cancer immunotherapy tailored to individual patient's tumor cells. Keywords: cancer immunotherapy; cancer vaccine; Cell engineering; innunogenic cell death; nanoparticl

ELM: super-resolution analysis of wide-field images of fluorescent shell structures.

It is often necessary to precisely quantify the size of specimens in biological studies. When measuring feature size in fluorescence microscopy, significant biases can arise due to blurring of its edges if the feature is smaller than the diffraction limit of resolution. This problem is avoided if an equation describing the feature's entire image is fitted to its image data. In this paper we present open-source software, ELM, which uses this approach to measure the size of spheroidal or cylindrical fluorescent shells with a precision of around 10 nm. This has been used to measure coat protein locations in bacterial spores and cell wall diameter in vegetative bacilli, and may also be valuable in microbiological studies of algae, fungi and viruses. ELM is available for download at https://github.com/quantitativeimaging/ELM

Delay as Agenda Setting *

Abstract In this paper we examine a class of dynamic decision-making processes that involve endogenous commitment. Our analysis is relevant to group decision making settings as well as to hierarchical decision making settings in which, for example, subordinates attempt to influence their superiors. An inability to commit leads to the possibility of strategic delay by decision participants who differ in their preferences and are limited by the resources they can allocate to influencing decisions. We focus on sources of delay caused by the strategic interaction of decision makers over time and find that the opportunity to delay decisions leads the participants to sometimes act against their short-run interests. Two classes of activity of this type emerge which we refer to as focusing and pinning. We also explore how strategic delay alters the benefits from agenda setting