The Political Economy of the Research Exemption in American Patent Law

This Article approaches the research exemption, and related legal developments, as a case study in the political economy of patent law. Part I recounts the history of the research exemption, touching briefly on historical origins but emphasizing developments since the 1970s in legislative, executive, and judicial forums. It also examines changes during the same time frame in related areas of patent law, like the Bayh-Dole legislation and the attempted repeal of state immunity from patent infringement liability. These legal developments indirectly affected the research exemption, or implicated similar concerns about imbalance in the patent system and the use of patents to tax, control, or inhibit research activity. Part II analyzes this history to illustrate and expand upon two major themes in the political economy of patent law, namely the surprising persistence of faulty economic ideology in patent policymaking and the institutional bias exhibited by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in shaping modern patent law. One major conclusion is that together these forces have created an excessively complex and ill-designed policy environment that is placing a significant strain on the national research system, a strain that executive agencies and the courts have tried to alleviate through ad hoc agreements and modifications of other patent doctrines, like the doctrine of subject matter eligibility

The Political Economy of the Research Exemption in American Patent Law

This Article approaches the research exemption, and related legal developments, as a case study in the political economy of patent law. Part I recounts the history of the research exemption, touching briefly on historical origins but emphasizing developments since the 1970s in legislative, executive, and judicial forums. It also examines changes during the same time frame in related areas of patent law, like the Bayh-Dole legislation and the attempted repeal of state immunity from patent infringement liability. These legal developments indirectly affected the research exemption, or implicated similar concerns about imbalance in the patent system and the use of patents to tax, control, or inhibit research activity. Part II analyzes this history to illustrate and expand upon two major themes in the political economy of patent law, namely the surprising persistence of faulty economic ideology in patent policymaking and the institutional bias exhibited by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in shaping modern patent law. One major conclusion is that together these forces have created an excessively complex and ill-designed policy environment that is placing a significant strain on the national research system, a strain that executive agencies and the courts have tried to alleviate through ad hoc agreements and modifications of other patent doctrines, like the doctrine of subject matter eligibility

Eelgrass Distribution in the Great Bay Estuary 2002

Eelgrass (Zostera marina) is an essential habitat for the Great Bay Estuary (GBE) because it provides food for wintering waterfowl and habitat for juvenile fish. Eelgrass is the basis of an estuarine food chain that supports many of the recreational, commercial and ecologically important species in the estuary. Additionally, eelgrass filters estuarine waters, removing both nutrients and suspended sediments from the water column. Eelgrass in the Great Bay Estuary is the largest monoculture in the State of New Hampshire and is considered a vital resource to the State’s marine environment. The UNH Seagrass Ecology Group has mapped the distribution of eelgrass in Great Bay every year from 1986 to 2001 (Short, unpublished data). Eelgrass in the entire Great Bay Estuary system (Great Bay, Little Bay, tidal tributaries, Piscataqua River, and Portsmouth Harbor) was mapped in 1996, 1999, 2000, and 2001. Eelgrass cover in Great Bay has been relatively constant for the past 10 years at approximately 2,000 acres. Earlier, in 1989, there was a dramatic decline in eelgrass beds to only 300 acres (15% of normal levels). The cause of this crash was an outbreak of a slime mold Labryrinthula zosterae, commonly called “wasting disease”. Recently, the greatest extent of eelgrass in the GBE was observed in 1996. In 2002, the NH Estuaries Project provided financial support to the University of New Hampshire to digitize eelgrass distribution information in Great Bay Estuary for the years 1999-2001. That project was completed and those historic eelgrass coverages are now in the NHEP database. In 2003, the NHEP committed to support the annual monitoring program for eelgrass starting with aerial photography of eelgrass coverage for 2003 and mapping of eelgrass distribution from information gathered in 2002. The present report presents eelgrass distribution information for 2002

Eelgrass Distribution in the Great Bay Estuary for 2009 : Final Report

Eelgrass in the Great Bay Estuary in 2009 was once again present only in Great Bay itself and in Portsmouth Harbor. For the second year in a row, there was no eelgrass in Little Bay or in the Piscataqua River. In 2009, there was a continued loss of eelgrass biomass in Great Bay; there has been a 66.4% loss of biomass in Great Bay since 1996 and distribution is 30% less than in 1996. Although eelgrass distribution in Great Bay itself increased between 2008 and 2009, primarily due to continued expansion from natural seeding of bare areas, the Bay’s eelgrass biomass continued to decline as a result of decreases in plant density in existing beds. Nuisance macroalgae in Great Bay continued to proliferate and impact eelgrass by smothering eelgrass shoots and reducing shoot density. In 2009, Portsmouth Harbor experienced a 16% loss of eelgrass distribution since 2008, for a loss of 31% of the Harbor’s eelgrass distribution in the past three years, an alarming trend. Although the number of acres of eelgrass has increased, driven by gains in Great Bay, even with these areal gains, biomass is down for the Bay itself and the trends of loss in Portsmouth Harbor of both eelgrass distribution and percent cover continue. Despite the increase in eelgrass distribution in Great Bay Estuary due to the increased seed recruitment in Great Bay, the loss of percent cover and biomass in Great Bay and in Portsmouth Harbor again this year (2008 – 2009) indicate the continuing adverse water quality conditions in the Estuary

Eelgrass Distribution in the Great Bay Estuary for 2006

Eelgrass in Great Bay itself decreased substantially (43%) between 2005 and 2006, due to losses in both biomass and distribution. Little Bay and the Piscataqua River showed greater change(loss of 40%) between 2005 and 2006 than previously, with very low levels of eelgrass compared to historical distributions and the large beds of ruppia in the Bellamy, Oyster and upper Piscataqua Rivers also diminished. The Portsmouth Harbor – Little Harbor area experienced a decrease in eelgrass abundance (14%) between 2005 and 2006. All of the Great Bay Estuary has decreased eelgrass beds compared to historic distributions. In the decade from 1996 to 2006, the Great Bay Estuary has lost almost half its eelgrass

Eelgrass Distribution in the Great Bay Estuary for 2012

Eelgrass in the Great Bay Estuary declined in both distribution and biomass between 2011 and 2012, continuing the long-term trend of eelgrass loss. In 2012, eelgrass was once again mainly present in the Great Bay itself with limited distribution in Portsmouth Harbor and Little Bay. Eelgrass distribution in Great Bay decreased 1.5% between 2011 and 2012 with no change in biomass. In Great Bay,eelgrass distribution has declined 36% since 1996 and biomass is a quarter of what it was in the early 1990s. Nuisance macroalgae in Great Bay continued to proliferate in 2012 and to impact eelgrass by smothering eelgrass shoots and reducing shoot density. In the Piscataqua River, a new, small bed of eelgrass was present in 2012. The eelgrass bed in Little Bay that first appeared in 2010 retracted by 28% between 2011 and 2012 and had very low percent cover in 2012. In 2012, no significant change in eelgrass distribution or biomass was seen in the Portsmouth Harbor and Little Harbor area of the estuary. Overall, eelgrass distribution in the Estuary from 2011 to 2012 decreased 3.9%. The long-term trend of eelgrass decline in the Great Bay Estuary continued in 2012, with a loss of eelgrass distribution of 37% estuary-wide since 1996

Modeling the near-UV band of GK stars, Paper II: NLTE models

We present a grid of atmospheric models and synthetic spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for late-type dwarfs and giants of solar and 1/3 solar metallicity with many opacity sources computed in self-consistent Non-Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium (NLTE), and compare them to the LTE grid of Short & Hauschildt (2010) (Paper I). We describe, for the first time, how the NLTE treatment affects the thermal equilibrium of the atmospheric structure (T(tau) relation) and the SED as a finely sampled function of Teff, log g, and [A/H] among solar metallicity and mildly metal poor red giants. We compare the computed SEDs to the library of observed spectrophotometry described in Paper I across the entire visible band, and in the blue and red regions of the spectrum separately. We find that for the giants of both metallicities, the NLTE models yield best fit Teff values that are ~30 to 90 K lower than those provided by LTE models, while providing greater consistency between \log g values, and, for Arcturus, Teff values, fitted separately to the blue and red spectral regions. There is marginal evidence that NLTE models give more consistent best fit Teff values between the red and blue bands for earlier spectral classes among the solar metallicity GK giants than they do for the later classes, but no model fits the blue band spectrum well for any class. For the two dwarf spectral classes that we are able to study, the effect of NLTE on derived parameters is less significant.Comment: Submitted to The Astrophysical Journal. Observed spectrophotometric library, and grids of NLTE and LTE) synthetic spectra for GK stars available at http://www.ap.smu.ca/~ishort/PHOENI