Global standard essential patent litigation : anti-suit and anti-anti-suit injunctions

The global litigation of standard essential patents (SEP) is taking a new turn with the jurisdictional battle between national courts. Some courts have started issuing anti-suit injunctions (ASI) to prohibit parallel litigation and consolidate the dispute at a single venue, while others have retaliated with anti-anti-suit injunctions (AASI), barring parties from seeking or enforcing foreign ASIs. The anti-suit injunction saga benefits no one: the parties in SEP licensing disputes are faced with legal uncertainty as to which court will hear their case; it incentivises a race to the court to secure the most favourable jurisdiction instead of focusing on licensing negotiations; it increases litigation costs of having to pursue multiple ASIs and AASIs; and parties face fines and imprisonment of officials for non-compliance. The article examines the general conditions for the grant of ASIs and AASIs and analyses their application in SEP disputes. The article then proposes three measures that courts can take to stop the global jurisdictional race. First, courts should exercise judicial restraint and return to the originally strict criteria for the granting of ASIs. In principle, ASIs in SEP cases should not be granted as they are incompatible with international comity, fundamental rights to property and access to a court. Only anti-enforcement injunctions may exceptionally be granted, and under strict conditions. Second, a court could hold a party seeking an ASI as ‘unwilling’ to license, acting as a strong deterrent from seeking this type of remedy. Third, courts could encourage parties to agree on the arbitration of FRAND licensing terms by holding that an unjustified refusal to enter into arbitration is a sign of ‘unwillingness’ to license. Taking these principles into account would ensure that each national court is respected and would incentivise parties to focus on the resolution of the key issue behind every SEP dispute – the appropriate FRAND licensing terms

SEP expert group report: a look into the IOT future of SEP licensing

The EU Institutions have been interested in improving the predictability, reliability and transparency of the standard-essential patent (“SEP”) licensing framework, as evidenced by several reports and communications over the recent years. In 2017, the European Commission committed to setting up an expert group (“EG”) to monitor SEP licensing markets and gather information on the internet of things (“IoT”) industries practices. In January 2021, the EG published a Report examining the challenges of SEP licensing in the IoT. The EG members failed to reach a consensus on how SEP licensing markers should evolve, and the Report contains a large number (79) of proposals with different degrees of support. As the EG noted, its main objective is to “generate ideas for a further debate.” This paper focuses on the three areas where the EG strongly recommends departing from traditional competition law prohibitions of collective price-fixing and industry coordination.4 After introducing the IoT SEP licensing issues that prompted the EG (Section 1), the analysis of the Report notes a major shift towards greater collective industry actions – from choosing the supply chains levels for licensing SEPs (Section 2), agreeing on the aggregate royalty rates for a standard for different product categories (Section 3), to forming patent pools and implementer licensing platforms (Section 4). Overall, these recommendations call on competition authorities to recognise the efficiency of industry-wide coordination to simplify SEP licensing. Still, as the conclusion underlines, challenges remain about their proper implementation in practice and placing the necessary safeguards to prevent cartelisation on technology sellers or users sides

SIMP - Subjective Individual Model of Prosumer

The energy consumer is at the centre of the European Union's energy policies. Consumer's active participation is considered as a prerequisite for managing the energy transition successfully and in a cost-effective way. The recent measures proposed by the European Commission with the 'Clean Energy for all Europeans' rely on smart grid technologies, solutions and concepts to accelerate, transform and consolidate the EU clean energy transition. In this context, the aim of this report is to present an agent based model of the electricity consumer (SIMP – Subjective Individual Model of Prosumer). The model can be used as a tool to better understand the impact that innovative energy services, enabled by smart grid technologies, may have on the electricity consumers and the society at large. Furthermore, the model can be used as a tool to gain insight into diffusion patterns of energy services (in this report represented by electricity contracts) and associated switching rates. As such, it contributes to the understanding of what fosters and what hinders an effective deployment of innovative energy services.JRC.C.3-Energy Security, Distribution and Market

The Mediterranean deep-water kelp Laminaria rodriguezii is an endangered species in the Adriatic Sea

Acknowledgments Thanks are due to Klaus Lüning for a gametophyte culture of L. abyssalis, and to Britta Schaffelke for a herbarium specimen of L. rodriguezii from the western Mediterranean. We are grateful to the Total Foundation (Paris) for funding this study within the framework of the project “Brown algal ecology and biodiversity in the eastern Mediterranean Sea”, and to the MASTS pooling initiative (Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland, funded by the Scottish Funding Council and contributing institutions; grant reference HR09011), as well as Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sports for supporting project “Benthic communities in the Adriatic Sea (Project ID: 0001005)”. Open access via Springer Compact AgreementPeer reviewedPublisher PD

An agent-based model of flood risk and insurance

Flood risk emerges from the dynamic interaction between natural hazards and human vulnerability. Methods for the quantification of flood risk are well established, but tend to deal with human and economic vulnerability as being static or changing with an exogenously defined trend. In this paper we present an Agent-Based Model (ABM) developed to simulate the dynamical evolution of flood risk and vulnerability, and facilitate an investigation of insurance mechanism in London. The ABM has been developed to firstly allow an analysis of the vulnerability of homeowners to surface water flooding, which is one of the greatest short-term climate risks in the UK with estimated annual costs of £1.3bn to £2.2bn. These costs have been estimated to increase by 60-220% over the next 50 years due to climate change and urbanisation. Vulnerability is influenced by homeowner’s decisions to move house and/or install measures to protect their properties from flooding. In particular, the ABM focuses on the role of flood insurance, simulating the current public-private partnership between the government and insurers in the UK, and the forthcoming re-insurance scheme Flood Re, designed as a roadmap to support the future affordability and availability of flood insurance. The ABM includes interaction between homeowners, sellers and buyers, an insurer, a local government and a developer. Detailed GIS and qualitative data of the London borough of Camden are used to represent an area at high risk of surface water flooding. The ABM highlights how future development can exacerbate current levels of surface water flood risk in Camden. Investment in flood protection measures are shown to be beneficial for reducing surface water flood risk. The Flood Re scheme is shown to achieve its aim of securing affordable flood insurance premiums, however, is placed under increasing pressure in the future as the risk of surface water flooding continues to increase

Hemoptysis as an Early Symptom of Abdominal Actinomycosis with Thoracic Extension Ten Years after Cholecystectomy with Retained Gallstone

Abstract Background: Thoracoabdominal actinomycosis is rare, especially in the context of readily available medical facilities. Methods: Case report and review of the literature. Case Report: A 54-year-old male patient was admitted because of hemoptysis and a pulmonary infiltrate in the left lower lobe. His history was unremarkable except for chronic gastritis and an elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy performed 10 years earlier. Following persistent hemoptysis, elevated inflammatory markers, and a non-revealing bronchoscopy, a computed tomography scan of the thorax and upper abdomen revealed a tumor in the upper part of the left kidney spreading directly to the adjacent diaphragm and left lower lobe. Laparotomy revealed a granulomatous mass containing a gallstone, as well as orange granular content. The treatment involved surgical removal of the mass, splenectomy, excision of the infiltrated part of the left hemidiaphragm, and decortication of the left lower lobe. Because of a prolonged post-operative low-grade fever and radiologically confirmed encapsulation in the lingula, the patient was given ceftriaxone. Repeat bronchoscopy revealed Actinomyces meyeri. The initial antibiotic therapy was replaced with amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, after which the patient's health improved. Conclusion: Actinomycosis is still a highly intriguing disease, as initial symptoms often mislead clinicians. It is important to consider the disease whenever we are challenged diagnostically or when risk factors are present

DESIGN OF COMPLEMENTARY RECURSIVE DIGITAL FILTERS BASED ON GROUP DELAY APPROXIMATION

This paper describes a new procedure for design of complementary IIR digital filters based on group delay approximation. The filters are realized as parallel sum of two all-pass filters, a structure for which low complexity implementations exist. Problem with phase warping which is inevitable if filter design is made through phase approximation will be removed using proposed method. Adequate initial solution is also proposed. Realized amplitude characteristics of complementary filters will be approximately equriripple. The design examples illustrate that the proposed algorithm is very efficient in term of computation time and number of iterations

Three-dimensional biomechanical model of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo in the semi-circular canal

Benigna paroksizmalna pozicijska vrtoglavica (BPPV) je najčešći poremećaj vestibularnog sustava koji uzrokuju bazofilne čestice u polukružnom kanalu. Trodimenzijski biomehanički model SCC je opisan s potpunom 3D interakcijom fluid-struktura, čestica, zidova, deformacije kupule i endolimfnog strujanja fluida. Prikazan je model SCC s parametarskim definiranim dimenzijama i trodimenzijskim 3D rekonstrukcijama određenog pacijenta. Korištene su pune Navier-Stokes jednadžbe s jednadžbama kontinuiteta opisuje tok fluida dok je Arbitrary-Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) formulacija korištena za gibanje mreže. Korištena je interakcija fluid-struktura za spajanje tekućine s deformacijom kupule. Primijenjen je algoritam za praćenje čestica. Korištene su različite veličine i broj čestica sa svojom punom interakcijom između sebe, zida i deformacije kupule. Raspodjela brzina, smičnog naprezanja i sila od strane endolimfe je prikazana kao parametar za jedan SCC kao i za tri SCC od određenog pacijenta. Svi modeli se koriste u korelaciji s istim eksperimentalnim protokolima s pokretima glave i gibanjem očiju - nystagmus. Puna interakcija fluid-struktura, čestica otoconia, zidova, deformacije kupula i endolimfnog fluida u tri dimenzije dat će više detalja za razumijevanje patologije specifičnog pacijenta u standardnoj kliničkoj dijagnostici i proceduri terapije za BPPV.Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) is one of the most common vestibular disorders occuring due to the presence of basophilic particles in the semicircular canals (SCC). Three-dimensional biomechanical model of the SCC is described with full 3D fluid-structure interaction of particles, wall, cupula deformation and endolymph fluid flow. The model of the SCC with parametric defined dimension and fully 3D three SCC from patient specific 3D reconstruction is presented. Navier-Stokes equations with continuity equations described fluid flow while Arbitrary-Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) formulation is used for mesh motion. Fluid-structure interaction for fluid coupling with cupula deformation is used. Particle tracking algorithm has been used for particle motion. Different size and number of particles with their full interaction between themselves, wall and cupula deformation are used. Velocity distribution, shear stress and force from endolymph side are presented for parametric one SCC and patient specific three SCC. All the models are used for correlation with the same experimental protocols with head moving and nystagmus eye tracking. Full fluid-structure interaction of otoconia particles, wall, cupula deflection and endolymph flow in three-dimension give more details and understanding of the pathology of the specific patient in standard clinical diagnostic and therapy procedure for BPPV

An Energy Systems Modelling Tool for the Social Simulation Community

The growing importance of links between the social and technical dimensions of the electricity infrastructure mean that many research problems cannot be effectively addressed without joint consideration of social and technical dynamics. This paper motivates the need for and introduces a tool to facilitate the development of linked social and technical models of electric power systems. The tool, called MatpowerConnect, enables the runtime linkage of Netlogo -- an oft-used modelling platform in the social simulation domain -- with Matpower -- a common power flow simulation package in the power systems domain. MatpowerConnect opens up new modelling possibilities for social simulation researchers active in the study of electricity systems. It offers ease of use coupled with a high degree of realism with which electricity infrastructure functionality is captured. We describe the development and use of two demonstration models using MatpowerConnect. These models illustrate two types of problems and system scales that can be addressed. In the first model we explore the consequences of actors' adaptive strategies on the performance of a small-scale power system. In the second model we simulate the effects of different regulatory regimes on network investment in a supra-national electricity transmission system to explore the long-term consequences for network development and social welfare. In both cases, the extension enables capturing a critical functionality of electric power systems, while allowing model development efforts to focus on social simulation aspects. Resources for using the extension are provided in conjunction with this paper

Effect of N-forms on Silicon Mobilization in the Rhizosphere of White Lupin

Silicon (Si) is the major constituent of soil present in various fractions, i.e., mobile, adsorbed, occluded (in pedogenic oxides and hydroxides), amorphous (biogenic and lithogenic) and crystalline (primary and secondary silicates, and quartz). Different soil factors such as pH, temperatures, microbial activity, the presence of cations, Al/Fe oxides and hydroxides and organic compounds, influence Si transformation, thereby modifying plant availably of Si. Silicon mobility and transformation in the soil have mainly been studied in the context of pedogenesis or biogeochemical Si cycling. However, research on Si mobility, transformation, and plant availability in the rhizosphere is still lacking. Here, we investigated the root potential of white lupine (Lupinus albus L.), known as a phosphorus (P)-efficient model plant (e.g., root release of H+ and carboxylates), to mobilize Si from the soil. Plants were grown in the rhizoboxes filled with low P soil (control) and fertilized with different N-forms (NO3, NH4 and NO3NH4). The control, NO3- and NO3NH4-fertilized plants accumulated significantly lower amounts of Si than the NH4-fertilized ones. All applied N-forms influenced Si availability in the bulk soil, but Si fractions have further been modified in the rhizosphere, what was crucial for Si accumulation in plants. For instance, NO3 supply slightly decreased Si availability in the bulk soil, but lupine plants accumulated a similar amount of Si as the control plants. A strong gradient of decreasing Si concentrations between bulk and rhizosphere soils was observed in mobile, adsorbed, and amorphous biogenic Si pools in the control and in all N treatments, while occluded and lithogenic amorphous Si pools were recalcitrant. Interestingly, a gradient of increasing concentrations of the amorphous biogenic Si pool between bulk and rhizosphere soils was recorded in the NH4 treatment, concomitantly with the strongest rhizosphere acidification