Evaluation of installed performance of a wing-tip-mounted pusher turboprop on a semispan wing

An exploratory investigation has been conducted at the Langley Research Center to determine the effect of a wing-tip-mounted pusher turboprop on the aerodynamic characteristics of a semispan wing. Tests were conducted on a semispan model with an upswept, untapered wing and an airdriven motor that powered an SR-2 high-speed propeller located on the tip of the wing as a pusher propeller. All tests were conducted at a Mach number of 0.70 over an angle-of-attack range from approximately -2 to 4 deg at a Reynolds number of 3.82 x 10 to the 6th based on the wing reference chord of 13 in. The data indicate that, as a result of locating the propeller behind the wing trailing edge at the wing tip in the crossflow of the wing-tip vortex, it is possible to improve propeller performance and simultaneously reduce the lift-induced drag

Patent Law, the Federal Circuit, and the Supreme Court, A Quiet Revolution

Over the last twenty years, a quiet revolution has taken place in patent law. Traditionally, patents were rarely valid, but if valid, broadly enforced. Since Congress created the Federal Circuit in 1982 and vested it with exclusive intermediate appellate jurisdiction over patent appeals, patents have become routinely valid, but narrowly enforced. This article evaluates the economic consequences of this revolution. Focusing on the reasons for, and the costs of, uniformity in patent protection, this article shows that the revolution will tend to limit the patent system\u27s ability to ensure the expected profitability, and hence the existence, of desirable, but high cost innovation

The Trade Dress Emperor\u27s New Clothes: Why Trade Dress Does Not Belong on the Principal Register

We take it largely for granted today that the Trademark Act of 1946 permits the registration of trade dress on the principal register, but it has not always been the rule. Until 1958, the Patent and Trademark Office, following Congress\u27s intent expressed in the Act\u27s plain language and legislative history, excluded trade dress from the principal register as a matter of law. In 1958, Assistant Commissioner Daphne Robert Leeds changed the rule and allowed the registration of a product package as a trademark on the principal register. Unable to find any legitimate basis for reading the Trademark Act to permit trade dress on the principal register, Leeds simply asserted her desired result as conclusion, willfully replacing Congress\u27s decision on the issue with her own. In this Article, Professor Lunney argues that time has largely erased our memories of trade dress\u27s dubious claim to the principal register. And courts, over the last twenty years, have crafted an extensive regime of federal trade dress protection out of Leeds\u27s erroneous interpretation. Yet, even today, a fair-minded review of the Trademark Act of 1946 and its legislative history reveals that there is no lawful basis for allowing trade dress on the principal register. As with the Emperor and his new clothes, the only real question is whether, following its revelation, courts and the Patent and Trademark Office are willing to recognize this naked truth

Patent Law, the Federal Circuit, and the Supreme Court, A Quiet Revolution

Over the last twenty years, a quiet revolution has taken place in patent law. Traditionally, patents were rarely valid, but if valid, broadly enforced. Since Congress created the Federal Circuit in 1982 and vested it with exclusive intermediate appellate jurisdiction over patent appeals, patents have become routinely valid, but narrowly enforced. This article evaluates the economic consequences of this revolution. Focusing on the reasons for, and the costs of, uniformity in patent protection, this article shows that the revolution will tend to limit the patent system\u27s ability to ensure the expected profitability, and hence the existence, of desirable, but high cost innovation

Trademark Monopolies

Since 1742, when Lord Hardwicke seemingly equated trademark protection with monopoly in one of the first trademark cases, until the mid-1950s, concerns that trademarks represented a form of illegitimate monopoly effectively constrained the growth of trademark protection. In the twentieth century, Edward Chamberlin became the leading proponent of the trademark as monopoly view with the publication of his work, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, in 1933. In his work, Chamberlin argued that a trademark enabled its owner to differentiate her products and then to exclude others from using the differentiating feature. By doing so, trademark protection can effectively cede control over distinct product markets to individual producers and thereby generate for trademark owners the downward sloping demand curve of a monopolist, with its associated monopoly rents and deadweight losses. Although Chamberlin himself recognized the need for product differentiation and rejected the supposed ideal of the perfect competition model, his work became a common rallying point for the trademark as monopoly argument. During the legislative debates leading to the Trademark Act of 1946, his work served as a basis for the Justice Department\u27s opposition to broad trademark protection

Takings, Efficiency, and Distributive Justice: A Response to Professor Dagan

In a recent article, Professor Hanoch Dagan argues that courts should incorporate the principle of distributive justice into their decisions as to whether a particular property owner should receive compensation in response to a government-imposed redistribution of property. To that end, he proposes a concept called progressive compensation that he believes will better serve distributive justice than present doctrine while at the same time improving the efficiency of governmental decision-making. This Essay questions key aspects of Professor Dagan\u27s analysis, proposes as an alternative a uniform few-many rule for resolving takings issues. If funded through progressive taxation, such a rule would better address both the efficiency and the distributive justice concerns associated with government redistributions of private property

Acoustic calibration and bathymetric processing with a Klein 5410 sidescan sonar

In 2001, NOAA acquired an L-3 Communications Klein 5410 bathymetric sidescan sonar system that simultaneously provided high resolution multibeam acoustic imagery and wide swath bathymetry. The sonar\u27s inability to produce matching bathymetry in overlapping swaths motivated the detailed acoustic and signal processing analyses described in this thesis. Results of this research include specific corrections for phase distortions introduced by the sonar\u27s transmit pulses, receiver electronics, and transducer elements, which are implemented in a newly-developed full vector bathymetric processing algorithm to estimate accurate acoustic arrival angles for each sample of the seafloor echo acquired by the Klein 5410 sonar. Performance of this algorithm was verified during a survey conducted in New York Harbor during October of 2006. The resulting bathymetry matches bathymetry obtained independently over the same survey area with a Reson SeaBat 8125 focused multibeam echo-sounder operating at the same acoustic frequency