Blog Archives
TurboPatent Introduces Two AI-Powered Tools for Patent Lawyers
July 8, 2017
TurboPatent, a company that develops applications to automate and streamline the patent protection process, is today introducing two artificial intelligence products for patent lawyers, RoboReview, a cloud-based product that analyzes draft patent applications, and RapidResponse, a product that assists lawyers in writing responses to office actions. These follow the company’s launch earlier this year of SmartShell, an AI-powered tool that helps prepare responses to office actions, which I wrote...
July 8, 2017
TurboPatent, a company that develops applications to automate and streamline the patent protection process, is today introducing two artificial intelligence products for patent lawyers, RoboReview, a cloud-based product that analyzes draft patent applications, and RapidResponse, a product that assists lawyers in writing responses to office actions. These follow the company’s launch earlier this year of SmartShell, an AI-powered tool that helps prepare responses to office actions, which I wrote...
New Research Explains Why Overthinking Can Hinder Creativity
July 8, 2017
Researchers in the UK have discovered that using a targeted electric current to temporarily suppress a particular region of the frontal lobes called the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) helps to break the mental constraints linked to “rut-like thinking.” This process also increased creativity. The findings from researchers at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and Goldsmiths University of London were published June 7 online ahead of print in the journal Scientific Reports. The...
July 8, 2017
Researchers in the UK have discovered that using a targeted electric current to temporarily suppress a particular region of the frontal lobes called the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) helps to break the mental constraints linked to “rut-like thinking.” This process also increased creativity. The findings from researchers at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and Goldsmiths University of London were published June 7 online ahead of print in the journal Scientific Reports. The...
BYU Law Launches New Legal Design Lab
July 8, 2017
From the news release: BYU Law School is pleased to announce the launch of LawX, a legal design lab that will create products and other solutions to address the pressing issues relating to access to legal services. “LawX will tackle some of the most challenging issues facing our legal system today,” said Gordon Smith, Dean of BYU Law School. “Some gaps in legal services may not be attractive targets for innovation by small, private startups or larger profit-oriented businesses, but closing...
July 8, 2017
From the news release: BYU Law School is pleased to announce the launch of LawX, a legal design lab that will create products and other solutions to address the pressing issues relating to access to legal services. “LawX will tackle some of the most challenging issues facing our legal system today,” said Gordon Smith, Dean of BYU Law School. “Some gaps in legal services may not be attractive targets for innovation by small, private startups or larger profit-oriented businesses, but closing...
Why Should We Slow Down? The Lost Art of Patience
July 7, 2017
Finally, while we view the speed of obtaining and transmitting information or goods as a necessity, slowing this down can aid in comprehension and appreciation of the message. Today, there are parts of our life that emphasize the benefits of being slow, ranging from a “slow food movement” to “slow parenting” to “slow jogging” to the mindful slowing associated with a meditation. We also sometimes enjoy having to be patient, and delayed gratification, in which we need to wait in order to enjoy...
July 7, 2017
Finally, while we view the speed of obtaining and transmitting information or goods as a necessity, slowing this down can aid in comprehension and appreciation of the message. Today, there are parts of our life that emphasize the benefits of being slow, ranging from a “slow food movement” to “slow parenting” to “slow jogging” to the mindful slowing associated with a meditation. We also sometimes enjoy having to be patient, and delayed gratification, in which we need to wait in order to enjoy...
Winston Churchill on Writing Paragraphs and Chapters
July 7, 2017
When Churchill was writing The River Wars (1899), he gained an understanding of how to organize his writing. From My Early Life, Chapter XVI: I affected a combination of the styles of Macaulay and Gibbon, the staccato antitheses of the former and the rolling sentences and genitival endings of the latter; and I stuck in a bit of my own from time to time. I began to see that writing, especially narrative, was not only an affair of sentences, but of paragraphs. Indeed I thought the paragraph no less...
July 7, 2017
When Churchill was writing The River Wars (1899), he gained an understanding of how to organize his writing. From My Early Life, Chapter XVI: I affected a combination of the styles of Macaulay and Gibbon, the staccato antitheses of the former and the rolling sentences and genitival endings of the latter; and I stuck in a bit of my own from time to time. I began to see that writing, especially narrative, was not only an affair of sentences, but of paragraphs. Indeed I thought the paragraph no less...
P/C Insurance Industry’s Net Income Drops 42.2% in Q1 2017
July 7, 2017
The private U.S. property/casualty insurance industry saw its net income after taxes drop to $7.7 billion in first-quarter 2017 from $13.4 billion in first-quarter 2016-a 42.2 percent decline-and its overall profitability as measured by its annualized rate of return on average policyholders’ surplus fall to 4.4 percent from 7.9 percent, according to ISO, a Verisk Analytics business, and the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI). The industry experienced $7.3 billion in direct...
July 7, 2017
The private U.S. property/casualty insurance industry saw its net income after taxes drop to $7.7 billion in first-quarter 2017 from $13.4 billion in first-quarter 2016-a 42.2 percent decline-and its overall profitability as measured by its annualized rate of return on average policyholders’ surplus fall to 4.4 percent from 7.9 percent, according to ISO, a Verisk Analytics business, and the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI). The industry experienced $7.3 billion in direct...
When Emotion Meets Thinking
July 6, 2017
The intriguing finding was that creativity did not depend only on emotion (happy or sad), or only on the thinking mode (big-picture or detailed) that participants were in. Creativity depended on the combination of participants' detail mindset and their mood. Participants who were first primed to be in a "big picture" frame of mind (looking for the bigger configuration in the letters) and were also encouraged to be in a positive mood (rather than a sad mood) were more creative in the uses of a brick...
July 6, 2017
The intriguing finding was that creativity did not depend only on emotion (happy or sad), or only on the thinking mode (big-picture or detailed) that participants were in. Creativity depended on the combination of participants' detail mindset and their mood. Participants who were first primed to be in a "big picture" frame of mind (looking for the bigger configuration in the letters) and were also encouraged to be in a positive mood (rather than a sad mood) were more creative in the uses of a brick...
Empirically Judging Judges
July 6, 2017
Assessing judicial outcomes and judicial decisionmaking not surprisingly endure as attractive topics for researchers. Indeed, the experimental literature is festooned with judicial "vignettes" that experimentally isolate critical variables. Of course, to really learn about judicial decisionmaking the "gold standard" sample remains actual judges (though, even when submitting real judges to experiments external validity concerns persist). On this front (and in this sub-field), my Cornell colleague,...
July 6, 2017
Assessing judicial outcomes and judicial decisionmaking not surprisingly endure as attractive topics for researchers. Indeed, the experimental literature is festooned with judicial "vignettes" that experimentally isolate critical variables. Of course, to really learn about judicial decisionmaking the "gold standard" sample remains actual judges (though, even when submitting real judges to experiments external validity concerns persist). On this front (and in this sub-field), my Cornell colleague,...
Fifth Circuit COA Vacates Lower Court’s Order Withdrawing Arbitration
July 6, 2017
The nation’s Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered a discrimination and retaliation lawsuit to arbitration. In Salas v. GE Oil & Gas, No. 16-20379 (5th Cir. May 12, 2017), a man, Gaspar Salas, began working for GE Oil & Gas after the company acquired his former employer. At the time of the acquisition, GE introduced a dispute resolution program requiring workers who continued their employment with the company after November 1, 2013 to abide by the company’s arbitration program. About...
July 6, 2017
The nation’s Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered a discrimination and retaliation lawsuit to arbitration. In Salas v. GE Oil & Gas, No. 16-20379 (5th Cir. May 12, 2017), a man, Gaspar Salas, began working for GE Oil & Gas after the company acquired his former employer. At the time of the acquisition, GE introduced a dispute resolution program requiring workers who continued their employment with the company after November 1, 2013 to abide by the company’s arbitration program. About...
How Accurate Are You at Judging Personality?
July 5, 2017
To become a good judge of personality, the König and colleagues' study suggests that you remove those biased blinders that make you “want” to like, or dislike, the person. Try to throw aside those potentially misleading external clues which have nothing to do with personality and instead drill down into qualities such as reliability, loyalty, and honesty. Think back on what the person’s actually done, and be as specific as possible. In seeking fulfilling relationships with others, we look...
July 5, 2017
To become a good judge of personality, the König and colleagues' study suggests that you remove those biased blinders that make you “want” to like, or dislike, the person. Try to throw aside those potentially misleading external clues which have nothing to do with personality and instead drill down into qualities such as reliability, loyalty, and honesty. Think back on what the person’s actually done, and be as specific as possible. In seeking fulfilling relationships with others, we look...
