A Prescription for Biopharmaceutical Patents: A Cure for Inter Partes Review Ailments

The patent system in the United States was forever changed with the introduction of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) in September of 2011. The AIA brought sweeping changes to American patent law in order to align the U.S. with much of the rest of the world by changing the invention priority from a “first to invent” to a “first to file” system. The first section of this note will provide a brief overview of the substance of inter partes reviews and some of the most critical negatives that have become apparent since 2013. The second section of this Note will highlight the imperfections and abuses that have become apparent with the inter partes review process, especially in how the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries have been negatively impacted or threatened. This Note will then conclude with proposed amendments to the inter partes review procedure, combining elements of covered business method reviews and oppositions that could be used to ease the burden on the biotech industry, to provide a better system for ensuring that developers of drugs can spend more time in the laboratory and less time in the court room

A fast FPTAS for single machine scheduling problem of minimizing total weighted earliness and tardiness about a large common due date

We address the single machine scheduling problem to minimize the total weighted earliness and tardiness about a nonrestrictive common due date. This is a basic problem with applications to the just-in-time manufacturing. The problem is linked to a Boolean programming problem with a quadratic objective function, known as the half-product. An approach to developing a fast fully polynomial-time approximation scheme (FPTAS) for the problem is identified and implemented. The running time matches the best known running time for an FPTAS for minimizing a half-product with no additive constan

Prolonged Graft Survival in Older Recipient Mice Is Determined by Impaired Effector T-Cell but Intact Regulatory T-Cell Responses

Elderly organ transplant recipients represent a fast growing segment of patients on the waiting list. We examined age-dependent CD4+ T-cell functions in a wild-type (WT) and a transgenic mouse transplant model and analyzed the suppressive function of old regulatory T-cells. We found that splenocytes of naïve old B6 mice contained significantly higher frequencies of T-cells with an effector/memory phenotype (CD4+CD44highCD62Llow). However, in-vitro proliferation (MLR) and IFNγ-production (ELISPOT) were markedly reduced with increasing age. Likewise, skin graft rejection was significantly delayed in older recipients and fewer graft infiltrating CD4+T-cells were observed. Old CD4+ T-cells demonstrated a significant impaired responsiveness as indicated by diminished proliferation and activation. In contrast, old alloantigen-specific CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ T-cells demonstrated a dose-dependent well-preserved suppressor function. Next, we examined characteristics of 18-month old alloreactive T-cells in a transgenic adoptive transfer model. Adoptively transferred old T-cells proliferated significantly less in response to antigen. Skin graft rejection was significantly delayed in older recipients, and graft infiltrating cells were reduced. In summary, advanced recipient age was associated with delayed acute rejection and impaired CD4+ T-cell function and proliferation while CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ T-cells (Tregs) showed a well-preserved function

A Prescription for Biopharmaceutical Patents: A Cure for Inter Partes Review Ailments

The patent system in the United States was forever changed with the introduction of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) in September of 2011. The AIA brought sweeping changes to American patent law in order to align the U.S. with much of the rest of the world by changing the invention priority from a “first to invent” to a “first to file” system. The first section of this note will provide a brief overview of the substance of inter partes reviews and some of the most critical negatives that have become apparent since 2013. The second section of this Note will highlight the imperfections and abuses that have become apparent with the inter partes review process, especially in how the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries have been negatively impacted or threatened. This Note will then conclude with proposed amendments to the inter partes review procedure, combining elements of covered business method reviews and oppositions that could be used to ease the burden on the biotech industry, to provide a better system for ensuring that developers of drugs can spend more time in the laboratory and less time in the court room

Evaluierung der Perspektiven der Ölmühlenverfahrenstechnik mit den Schwerpunkten Energiebedarf und Emissionsvermeidung

The perspectives of oil milling technology have been evaluated with respect to the minimization of energy demand and emission rates (CO2-, hexane). Based on the computer modelling of the current oil milling process, steps like dehulling and extrusion are introduced in the process line. Characteristical data like energy consumption divided in electric and thermal energy, CO2-equivalent-emission, hexane-emission of various process lines have been computed. An optimization of heat flow has been performed with reference to the pinch technology. The energy demand of an oil mill, which process dehulled rape seeds could be generated by the thermal utilization of the hulls. In comparison to existing plants a reduction in process energy demand of 20 % can be predicted for the optimized oil milling process. Because of the energy generation using the hulls the CO2-emission is changed drastically. Existing plants emit 237 kg CO2-equivalent-emission per ton oil because of the consumption fossil ene rgy resources. Whereas the optimized plant could produce more electric and thermal energy as it needs. Therefore assuming new energy generation process negative value of 262 kg CO2-equivalent could be computed