Taboo, the Game: Patent Office Edition—The New Preissuance Submissions Under the America Invents Act

Thorough patent examination ensures that issued patents confer constitutionally granted incentives to innovate but do not create inappropriately broad monopolies. Examiners at the United States Patent and Trademark Office are alone tasked with striking this proper balance, in part by searching the universe of existing published knowledge to determine the originality of the applied-for invention. In 2011, Congress enacted the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, which included a provision allowing the public to present examiners with relevant publications that the examiners’ own searches might not otherwise uncover. However, this “preissuance submissions” provision and its related administrative rule are tempered by 35 U.S.C. § 122(c) (2006), which prohibits any third-party, pre-grant “protest or other form of [preissuance] opposition” to an application. Thus, although a party may describe to an examiner how its submission is relevant to an application, that party is prohibited from arguing how the submission renders that application unpatentable. This Note argues that Congress should amend § 122(c) to permit preissuance third-party argumentation for two reasons. First, the current scheme arguably violates that law already. Second, a rule allowing submitter argumentation would better incentivize participation by competitive parties who fear that examiners might not recognize their submitted publications\u27 full invalidating potential

On the Law of Large Numbers for Nonmeasurable Identically Distributed Random Variables

Let $\Omega$ be a countable infinite product $\Omega^\N$ of copies of the same probability space $\Omega_1$, and let ${\Xi_n}$ be the sequence of the coordinate projection functions from $\Omega$ to $\Omega_1$. Let $\Psi$ be a possibly nonmeasurable function from $\Omega_1$ to $\R$, and let $X_n(\omega) = \Psi(\Xi_n(\omega))$. Then we can think of ${X_n}$ as a sequence of independent but possibly nonmeasurable random variables on $\Omega$. Let $S_n = X_1+...+X_n$. By the ordinary Strong Law of Large Numbers, we almost surely have $E_*[X_1] \le \liminf S_n/n \le \limsup S_n/n \le E^*[X_1]$, where $E_*$ and $E^*$ are the lower and upper expectations. We ask if anything more precise can be said about the limit points of $S_n/n$ in the non-trivial case where $E_*[X_1] < E^*[X_1]$, and obtain several negative answers. For instance, the set of points of $\Omega$ where $S_n/n$ converges is maximally nonmeasurable: it has inner measure zero and outer measure one

Nestes Modes, ’Qua’ and the Incarnation

A nested mode ontology allows one to make sense of apparently contradictory Christological claims such as that Christ knows everything and there are some things Christ does not know

Constant current load matches impedances of electronic components

Constant current load with negative resistance characteristics actively compensates for impedance variations in circuit components. Through a current-voltage balancing operation the internal impedance of the diodes is maintained at a constant value. This constant current load circuit can be used in simple telemetry systems