Results of the 1978 NASA/JPL balloon flight solar cell calibration program

The 1978 scheduled solar cell calibration balloon flight was successfully completed. Thirty six modules were carried to an altitude of above 36 kilometers. Recovery of telemetry and flight packages was without incident. These calibrated standard cells are used as reference standards in simulator testing of cells and arrays with similar spectral response characteristics. The factors affecting the spectral transmission of the atmosphere at various altitudes are summarized

Willful Patent Infringement and Enhanced Damages After In re Seagate: An Empirical Study

Willful patent infringement is a critical issue in patent litigation, as it can result in an award of up to treble (enhanced) damages. In a 2007 decision, In re Seagate, 497 F.3d 1360 (en banc), the Federal Circuit significantly altered the standard governing willful infringement by requiring the patentee to prove at least objective recklessness by the accused infringer. Many observers predicted that this heightened standard would result in far fewer willfulness findings and enhanced damage awards. To date, however, there has been no comprehensive empirical study of Seagate\u27s actual impact in patent litigation. This paper fills that gap by analyzing six years of decisions in the district courts - three years before and after Seagate - on willful patent infringement and enhanced damages. Surprisingly, it determines that willful infringement was found only about 10% fewer cases after Seagate. In addition, after Seagate, juries find willful infringement substantially more often than judges at trial. However, enhanced damages are awarded less frequently and in lower amounts when juries find willfulness compared to judges. Finally, this Article evaluates the impact of several common factors on willful infringement decisions after Seagate. Based on the empirical data collected in this study, the existence of a substantial or legitimate defense to infringement is the strongest predictor of a finding of no willfulness after Seagate, while evidence of copying by the accused infringer was the strongest predictor of willfulness. In contrast, the remaining factors studied - opinions of counsel, attempts to design around the patent, reexamination at the PTO, and bifurcation of willfulness from liability at trial - had no statistically significant effect on willfulness decisions

Noncompetes and Other Post-Employment Restraints on Competition: Empirical Evidence from Trade Secret Litigation

Noncompete clauses in employment agreements are both common and controversial. An estimated twenty-eight million Americans—nearly twenty percent of the U.S. workforce—are currently bound by a noncompete. The traditional view that noncompete agreements can facilitate increased productivity by encouraging employers to invest in employee training has been challenged by numerous legal and economics scholars in recent years, who contend noncompetes hinder employment options for skilled workers and limit information spillovers, which are both vital drivers of innovation. Based on these claims, several states have recently limited the enforcement of noncompetes, and legislation is pending at the federal level to effectively ban noncompete agreements for certain types of workers. Despite their widespread use, empirical research regarding noncompetes is fragmented and incomplete. In particular, there have been few empirical studies based on actual employment agreements. This Article helps fill an important gap in the existing literature. Using a novel dataset of noncompete agreements that have been publicly disclosed in trade secret litigation in federal court, it finds that noncompetes are more frequently enforced against technical and sales personnel, instead of high-ranking corporate executives. In addition, it finds that noncompetes are common for employees with a base salary below $100,000 per year and that California-based employees are significantly less likely to be bound by a noncompete. The implications of these and other findings from the dataset are discussed in the final Part of the Article

Climate change on the therapist\u27s couch : how mental health clinicians receive and respond to indirect psychological impacts of climate change in the therapeutic setting

The scientific community has reached near consensus that climate change (also known as anthropogenic global warming) poses a significant and potentially dire threat to the ecosystems upon which we, as humans and as a society, rest. While climate change is most often discussed in terms of its effect on the natural environmental, its psychological impacts are also expected to be immense and varied and include indirect distress related to the threat that climate change poses. The purpose of this study was to explore how this kind of indirect distress gets talked about in the therapeutic setting. Using a mixed methods online survey of mental health clinicians across the US, the study examined how and how often the topic of climate change comes up in therapy, and how therapists receive and respond to comments and conversations about climate change with their clients. The results indicate that at this point climate change is not talked about frequently or by a significant number of clients, but the topic certainly arises and can be a source of significant distress for some clients. Moreover, the findings suggest that the internal reactions that therapists have to the topic of climate change may impact how they receive and respond to clients who talk about it in therapy, and also indicate that although the majority of therapists believe climate change is relevant to their field, many do not feel that that their training has equipped them to deal with the subject

Patent Eligibility and Cancer Therapy

As an empirical legal scholar, I am pleased to report that Sasha Hoyt has done what very few law students—and even many law professors—could achieve. She successfully conducted a novel empirical study to assess the real-world impact of a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., on venture capital (VC) investment in startups and other companies that develop medical diagnostic technology. As Ms. Hoyt notes, patent protection is particularly important for startup companies, as it can help protect their innovations from unauthorized use, attract funding and other investments, and foster collaboration with third parties. In the Mayo case, the Supreme Court made it extremely difficult for medical diagnostic companies to obtain patent protection for their technology, no matter how novel or useful it is. Using a sophisticated difference-in-difference methodology to evaluate the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Mayo on VC funding for medical diagnostic startups, Ms. Hoyt finds that medical diagnostics firms received almost $10 billion less in VC funding that they would have compared to other industries that were unaffected by the decision. And importantly, this result is statistically significant using an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis. In short, Ms. Hoyt’s Note is a valuable contribution to the literature on patent eligibility and its impact on innovation, and policymakers should take note of her study

American Innovation and the Limits of Patent Law: A Response to William Hubbard, Competitive Patent Law

In his recent article Competitive Patent Law, Professor William Hubbard makes a valuable contribution regarding an underexplored aspect of patent law’s ability to encourage innovation — namely, “whether U.S. patent law can be tailored to provide U.S. innovators with enhanced incentives to invent” compared to foreign rivals, and thus by extension make American firms more competitive in the global marketplace. This brief response addresses three aspects of Professor Hubbard’s thoughtful and well-written article. First, it critiques the article’s contention that the United States is currently facing an “innovation gap.” Second, it critically evaluates the claim that patent law can play a meaningful role in enhancing innovation and thus competitiveness. Finally, it discusses several non-patent-law approaches, including prizes, tax credits, and math and science education, that can help foster the “innovation culture” advocated by Professor Hubbard