Delaware Bankruptcy Court Trumps an Automatic Stay by Allowing Suit to Terminate a Trademark Licensing Agreement

(Excerpt) Trademark licensees that file for bankruptcy protection may encounter difficulties and uncertainties regarding their continued use of trademarks that are critical for their businesses. An issue that remains unsettled with courts is whether a licensee can assume a trademark license without the licensor’s consent. Circuits are divided on whether Section 365(c)(1) of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”) prohibits a debtor from assuming an intellectual property license without the consent of the licensor. Courts on one side of the issue apply the “actual test,” which permits a debtor to assume a license as long as the debtor does not intend to assign it. On the other side, courts apply the “hypothetical test,” which prohibits a debtor from assuming a license regardless of the debtor’s intent to assign it. In In re Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc., the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware held that trademark licenses are not assignable by a debtor licensee without the consent of the licensor. Section 365(c)(1) of the Bankruptcy Code limits a debtor’s ability to assume or assign a contract where “applicable law” excuses a non-debtor counterparty from accepting performance from a third party. In interpreting applicable federal trademark law, the Trump court noted that exclusive or non-exclusive trademark licenses are precluded from assignment by a licensee without the licensor’s consent, even if the original license agreement did not expressly prohibit such an assignment. The Court held that, under Section 365(c)(1) of the Bankruptcy Code, trademark license agreements are not assumable or assignable by a debtor licensee without the trademark owner\u27s consent because they are not assignable under federal trademark law. The court in Trump Entertainment also discusses in detail what type of “applicable law” is relevant in the 365(c)(1) analysis

Towards a transparent, credible, evidence-based decision-making process of new drug listing on the Hong Kong Hospital Authority Drug Formulary: challenges and suggestions

The aim of this article is to describe the process, evaluation criteria, and possible outcomes of decision-making for new drugs listed in the Hong Kong Hospital Authority Drug Formulary in comparison to the health technology assessment (HTA) policy overseas. Details of decision-making processes including the new drug listing submission, Drug Advisory Committee (DAC) meeting, and procedures prior to and following the meeting, were extracted from the official Hong Kong Hospital Authority drug formulary management website and manual. Publicly-available information related to the new drug decision-making process for five HTA agencies [the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC), the Australia Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC), the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH), and the New Zealand Pharmaceutical Management Agency (PHARMAC)] were reviewed and retrieved from official documents from public domains. The DAC is in charge of systemically and critically appraising new drugs before they are listed on the formulary, reviewing submitted applications, and making the decision to list the drug based on scientific evidence to which safety, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness are the primary considerations. When compared with other HTA agencies, transparency of the decision-making process of the DAC, the relevance of clinical and health economic evidence, and the lack of health economic and methodological input of submissions are the major challenges to the new-drug listing policy in Hong Kong. Despite these challenges, this review provides suggestions for the establishment of a more transparent, credible, and evidence-based decision-making process in the Hong Kong Hospital Authority Drug Formulary. Proposals for improvement in the listing of new drugs in the formulary should be a priority of healthcare reforms

Visual appearance interacts with conceptual knowledge in object recognition

Objects contain rich visual and conceptual information, but do these two types of information interact? Here, we examine whether visual and conceptual information interact when observers see novel objects for the first time. We then address how this interaction influences the acquisition of perceptual expertise. We used two types of novel objects (Greebles), designed to resemble either animals or tools, and two lists of words, which described non-visual attributes of people or man-made objects. Participants first judged if a word was more suitable for describing people or objects while ignoring a task-irrelevant image, and showed faster responses if the words and the unfamiliar objects were congruent in terms of animacy (e.g., animal-like objects with words that described human). Participants then learned to associate objects and words that were either congruent or not in animacy, before receiving expertise training to rapidly individuate the objects. Congruent pairing of visual and conceptual information facilitated observers' ability to become a perceptual expert, as revealed in a matching task that required visual identification at the basic or subordinate levels. Taken together, these findings show that visual and conceptual information interact at multiple levels in object recognition

Robotic Specialization in Autonomous Robotic Structural Assembly

Robotic in-space assembly of large space structures is a long-term NASA goal to reduce launch costs and enable larger scale missions. Recently, researchers have proposed using discrete lattice building blocks and co-designed robots to build high-performance, scalable primary structure for various on-orbit and surface applications. These robots would locomote on the lattice and work in teams to build and reconfigure building-blocks into functional structure. However, the most reliable and efficient robotic system architecture, characterized by the number of different robotic 'species' and the allocation of functionality between species, is an open question. To address this problem, we decompose the robotic building-block assembly task into functional primitives and, in simulation, study the performance of the the variety of possible resulting architectures. For a set consisting of five process types (move self, move block, move friend, align bock, fasten block), we describe a method of feature space exploration and ranking based on energy and reliability cost functions. The solution space is enumerated, filtered for unique solutions, and evaluated against energy and reliability cost functions for various simulated build sizes. We find that a 2 species system, dividing the five mentioned process types between one unit cell transport robot and one fastening robot, results in the lowest energy cost system, at some cost to reliability. This system enables fastening functionality to occupy the build front while reducing the need for that functional mass to travel back and forth from a feed station. Because the details of a robot design affect the weighting and final allocation of functionality, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to evaluate the effect of changing mass allocations on architecture performance. Future systems with additional functionalities such as repair, inspection, and others may use this process to analyze and determine alternative robot architectures

Androgynous Fasteners for Robotic Structural Assembly

We describe the design and analysis of an androgynous fastener for autonomous robotic assembly of high performance structures. The design of these fasteners aims to prioritize ease of assembly through simple actuation with large driver positioning tolerance requirements, while producing a reversible mechanical connection with high strength and stiffness per mass. This can be applied to high strength to weight ratio structural systems, such as discrete building block based systems that offer reconfigurability, scalability, and system lifecycle efficiency. Such periodic structures are suitable for navigation and manipulation by relatively small mobile robots. The integration of fasteners, which are lightweight and can be robotically installed, into a high performance robotically managed structural system is of interest to reduce launch energy requirements, enable higher mission adaptivity, and decrease system life-cycle costs

Making Red Billionaire Villages: 'Line Struggle' in Post-Mao China

Many have observed that post-Mao Chinese politics has been depoliticized: the role of ideology has declined significantly since the adoption of market reform, and technocratic managerialism has taken its place. However, the persistence of China's “red billionaire villages” suggests that politics at the rural grassroots may well have survived the process of “ossification” of the Party-state structures described by Wang Hui and others. Such villages either preserved or revived collectivised ownership and distribution; others go so far as to maintain the political iconography and discursive conventions characteristic of the Mao era. Such villages—estimated at one point by Li Changping to number in the tens of thousands—have garnered the enthusiastic support of a burgeoning network of “red communists” that includes high-ranking civilian leaders, veteran military officers, the “second red generation,” Maoists, left-leaning organizations at the grassroots. On the one hand, such villages serve as counter-models to the increasing marketization and privatisation of Chinese agriculture; on the other hand, some appear to have enjoyed privileged access to enormous bank loans, generous funding programmes, and technical assistance, all of which call into question the economic viability of “red” rural development today. Based on original data collected during fieldwork in Henan, this paper critically examines four of the province's best-known “red billionaire villages” (Nanjie Village, Beixu Zhuang Village, Longtang Village and Liu Zhuang Village). We conclude that model-making serves as a factional tool for waging “line struggle” in the post-Mao era

China’s New Foreign Relations Law

China's new foreign relations law reflects Xi’s “change first, legislate second” approach. Two things stand out in the law. The first is bolstered party authority in foreign policy making (Articles 5 and 9). The second concerns Beijing’s approach towards western sanctions and criticisms (Article 33)