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Do Economic Downturns Dampen Patent Litigation?
August 26, 2015
Recent studies estimate that the economic impact of U.S. patent litigation may be as large as $80 billion per year and that the overall rate of U.S. patent litigation has been growing rapidly over the past 20 years. And yet, the relationship of the macroeconomy to patent litigation rates has never been studied in any rigorous fashion. This lacuna is notable given that there are two opposing theories among lawyers regarding the effect of economic downturns on patent litigation. One camp argues for a substitution...
August 26, 2015
Recent studies estimate that the economic impact of U.S. patent litigation may be as large as $80 billion per year and that the overall rate of U.S. patent litigation has been growing rapidly over the past 20 years. And yet, the relationship of the macroeconomy to patent litigation rates has never been studied in any rigorous fashion. This lacuna is notable given that there are two opposing theories among lawyers regarding the effect of economic downturns on patent litigation. One camp argues for a substitution...
Philip Tetlock: A Short Course in Superforecasting
August 25, 2015
On the weekend of July 30th, Edge convened one of its "Master Classes." In the past, these classes have featured short courses taught by people such as psychologist and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman ("A Short Course in Thinking About Thinking"); behavioral economists Richard Thaler and Sendhil Mullainathan, again with Kahneman ("A Short Course in Behavioral Economics"); and genomic researchers George Church and J. Craig Venter ("A Short Course on Synthetic Genomics"). This year, the psychologist...
August 25, 2015
On the weekend of July 30th, Edge convened one of its "Master Classes." In the past, these classes have featured short courses taught by people such as psychologist and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman ("A Short Course in Thinking About Thinking"); behavioral economists Richard Thaler and Sendhil Mullainathan, again with Kahneman ("A Short Course in Behavioral Economics"); and genomic researchers George Church and J. Craig Venter ("A Short Course on Synthetic Genomics"). This year, the psychologist...
Tacit Collusion: The Neglected Experimental Evidence
August 25, 2015
Both in the United States and in Europe, antitrust authorities prohibit merger not only if the merged entity, in and of itself,...
August 25, 2015
Both in the United States and in Europe, antitrust authorities prohibit merger not only if the merged entity, in and of itself,...
In Determining Arbitrability, Conjugation and Context Count
August 25, 2015
In Russell v. Citigroup, Inc., 748 F.3d 677 (6th Cir. 2014), the Sixth Circuit held that an employee who signed an arbitration...
August 25, 2015
In Russell v. Citigroup, Inc., 748 F.3d 677 (6th Cir. 2014), the Sixth Circuit held that an employee who signed an arbitration...
The Research Is Clear: Long Hours Backfire for People and for Companies
August 24, 2015
So the bigger question we have to ask ourselves about overwork is not just, “Who’s to blame?” but a more basic one:...
August 24, 2015
So the bigger question we have to ask ourselves about overwork is not just, “Who’s to blame?” but a more basic one:...
Developments on Judicial Review under the FAA after Hall Street
August 24, 2015
In Hall Street Associates, L.L.C. v Mattel, Inc., 552 U.S. 576, 581–84 (2008), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the grounds provided under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) for vacating or modifying arbitration awards are exclusive and may not be supplemented by an agreement of the parties. In holding that parties cannot contractually expand judicial review of arbitration awards under the FAA beyond what is provided for in the statute, the Court explicitly noted that it was addressing only “the...
August 24, 2015
In Hall Street Associates, L.L.C. v Mattel, Inc., 552 U.S. 576, 581–84 (2008), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the grounds provided under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) for vacating or modifying arbitration awards are exclusive and may not be supplemented by an agreement of the parties. In holding that parties cannot contractually expand judicial review of arbitration awards under the FAA beyond what is provided for in the statute, the Court explicitly noted that it was addressing only “the...
Can Litigation Funding Thrive on Bankruptcy?
August 24, 2015
Litigation financing has been gaining popularity in the U.S. in recent years, and a new venture is hoping that momentum will carry over into the field of bankruptcy. Burford Capital, one of the country’s biggest providers of litigation funding, has teamed up with Chilmark Partners, a bankruptcy and restructuring firm, to create Bankruptcy Litigation Funding LLC. The joint venture, which was launched in July 2015, intends to “provide financing services for claims brought in connection with...
August 24, 2015
Litigation financing has been gaining popularity in the U.S. in recent years, and a new venture is hoping that momentum will carry over into the field of bankruptcy. Burford Capital, one of the country’s biggest providers of litigation funding, has teamed up with Chilmark Partners, a bankruptcy and restructuring firm, to create Bankruptcy Litigation Funding LLC. The joint venture, which was launched in July 2015, intends to “provide financing services for claims brought in connection with...
The Neural Networks Behind Google Voice Transcription
August 23, 2015
Over the past several years, deep learning has shown remarkable success on some of the world’s most difficult computer science challenges, from image classification and captioning to translation to model visualization techniques. Recently we announced improvements to Google Voice transcription using Long Short-term Memory Recurrent Neural Networks (LSTM RNNs)—yet another place neural networks are improving useful services. We thought we’d give a little more detail on how we did this. Since...
August 23, 2015
Over the past several years, deep learning has shown remarkable success on some of the world’s most difficult computer science challenges, from image classification and captioning to translation to model visualization techniques. Recently we announced improvements to Google Voice transcription using Long Short-term Memory Recurrent Neural Networks (LSTM RNNs)—yet another place neural networks are improving useful services. We thought we’d give a little more detail on how we did this. Since...
Interactive Watch Faces Come To Android Wear
August 23, 2015
Interactive watch faces will let you do more with your Android Wear. The latest update to Android Wear caused me to get my LG Watch Urbane out of the watch box, and pair it to my Note 3. Once synced and connected, I am looking forward to checking out the additional features. Interactive watch faces will allow notifications to appear without opening an app, and should increase the functionality of the interface. Don't get me wrong, my Gear S is the device that lives on my right wrist every day (I am, after...
August 23, 2015
Interactive watch faces will let you do more with your Android Wear. The latest update to Android Wear caused me to get my LG Watch Urbane out of the watch box, and pair it to my Note 3. Once synced and connected, I am looking forward to checking out the additional features. Interactive watch faces will allow notifications to appear without opening an app, and should increase the functionality of the interface. Don't get me wrong, my Gear S is the device that lives on my right wrist every day (I am, after...
Jeff Bezos: Drone Deliveries Will Be As Common As Mail Truck
August 22, 2015
The drones, or Prime Air to give the project its official name, are being worked on in a number of research centres including one in Cambridge (in the UK, not Massachusetts). “One day Prime Air deliveries will be as common as seeing a mail truck,” says Bezos. “The technical problems are very straight ahead. The biggest issue, or the biggest thing that needs to be worked on, is the regulatory side.” Although tight-lipped about which country the service will launch in first, Bezos hints...
August 22, 2015
The drones, or Prime Air to give the project its official name, are being worked on in a number of research centres including one in Cambridge (in the UK, not Massachusetts). “One day Prime Air deliveries will be as common as seeing a mail truck,” says Bezos. “The technical problems are very straight ahead. The biggest issue, or the biggest thing that needs to be worked on, is the regulatory side.” Although tight-lipped about which country the service will launch in first, Bezos hints...
