Technology Transfers in the EEC: A Look at the Proposed Block Exemption for Exclusive Patent Licensing Agreements

In this Note, the Present Draft is examined in light of the goals and history of Community competition policy. After a discussion of patents and licensing, the previous drafts and criticisms thereof are examined. An analysis of the recent decisions in Nungesser v. Commission (Maize Seed) and Coditel v. Ciné Vog as they relate to the proposed regulation follows. Finally, it is suggested that the Commission\u27s present position, as evidenced by the Present Draft of the proposed regulation, constitutes an appropriate balance between the demands of industry and the needs of the Community

Non-Abelian gauge potentials in graphene bilayers

We study the effect of spatial modulations in the interlayer hopping of graphene bilayers, such as those that arise upon shearing or twisting. We show that their single-particle physics, characterized by charge accumulation and recurrent formation of zero-energy bands as the pattern period L increases, is governed by a non-Abelian gauge potential arising in the low-energy electronic theory due to the coupling between layers. We show that such gauge-type couplings give rise to a potential that, for certain discrete values of L, spatially confines states at zero energy in particular regions of the Moir\'e patterns. We also draw the connection between the recurrence of the flat zero-energy bands and the non-Abelian character of the potential.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, published versio

On the Nature of Nonperturbative Effects in Stabilized 2D Quantum Gravity

We remark that the weak coupling regime of the stochastic stabilization of 2D quantum gravity has a unique perturbative vacuum, which does not support instanton configurations. By means of Monte Carlo simulations we show that the nonperturbative vacuum is also confined in one potential well. Nonperturbative effects can be assessed in the loop equation. This can be derived from the Ward identities of the stabilized model and is shown to be modified by nonperturbative terms.Comment: 20 pages in Latex and 4 figures in Postscript, IEM-FT-65/9

Study of the Effect of Hot Rolling Processing Parameters on the Variability of HSLA Steels

The effect of different hot mill processing parameters and their influence on the variability of mechanical properties of HSLA steels has been studied. This work presents an analysis of the relative contribution of the different hot mill processing parameters to the variability of HSLA steels. The experimental design includes variation of Reheating, Roughing, Finishing, and Coiling temperatures, as well as Cooling Rate through the austenite to ferrite transformation, and from coiling to room temperature. The variation in finishing and coiling temperature results in an average variation of 12% in mechanical properties. The variation of the cooling rate, through the austenite to ferrite transformation, and from coiling to room temperature, has the largest impact on the variability of microstructure and properties. A correlation between the various microstructural features, dislocation densities and precipitation behavior, with mechanical properties is presented

Differences in exchange rate pass-through in the euro area.

This paper focuses on the pass-through of exchange rate changes into the prices of imports made by euro area countries originating outside the area. Using data on import unit values for thirteen different product categories for each country, we estimate industry-specific rates of pass-through across and within countries for all euro members. In the short-run, pass-through rates differ across industries and countries and are less than one. In the longrun neither full pass-through nor equality of pass-through rates across industries and countries can be rejected. Differences exist across euro area countries in the degree that a common exchange rate movement gets transmitted into consumer prices and costs of production indices. Most of these differences in transmission rates are due to the distinct degree of openness of each country to non-euro area imports rather than to the heterogeneity in the structure of imports.Exchange rate; pass-through; euro; monetary union;