Patentointiaktiivisuuden muutos x86-prosessorivalmistajien keskuudessa vuosina 1985-2009 Case: Intel

Työssä tutkitaan x86-prosessorivalmistajien patentointiaktiivisuuden muutosta vuosina 1985 – 2009 Intelin kautta. Työn tavoitteena on selvittää syitä, jotka ovat johtaneet patentointiaktiivisuuden radikaaliin muutokseen toimialalla. Työssä esitellään patenttien tärkeys teknologiayrityksille ja miten patentointiaktiivisuus on muuttunut x86-prosessorivalmistajien keskuudessa. Työssä käsitellään patenttiteoriaa, esimerkiksi patenttijärjestelmää ja yrityksen patenttipolitiikkaa. Työssä käsitellään ei-valmistavia patenttitaloja ja luodaan katsaus niiden vaikutuksiin valmistaville yrityksille. Tämän jälkeen perehdytään yksityiskohtaisemmin teknologiajätti Inteliin. Työn tarkoitus on selvittää, onko toimialan patentointiaktiivisuus hidastumassa tai pysähtynyt. Työssä pyritään löytämään mahdollisia syitä Intelin patentointiaktiivisuuden muutokseen.

Effects Of Therapeutic Approach On The Neonatal Evolution Of Very Low Birth Weight Infants With Patent Ductus Arteriosus.

To analyze the effects of treatment approach on the outcomes of newborns (birth weight [BW] < 1,000 g) with patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), from the Brazilian Neonatal Research Network (BNRN) on: death, bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), severe intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH III/IV), retinopathy of prematurity requiring surgical (ROPsur), necrotizing enterocolitis requiring surgery (NECsur), and death/BPD. This was a multicentric, cohort study, retrospective data collection, including newborns (BW < 1000 g) with gestational age (GA) < 33 weeks and echocardiographic diagnosis of PDA, from 16 neonatal units of the BNRN from January 1, 2010 to Dec 31, 2011. Newborns who died or were transferred until the third day of life, and those with presence of congenital malformation or infection were excluded. Groups: G1 - conservative approach (without treatment), G2 - pharmacologic (indomethacin or ibuprofen), G3 - surgical ligation (independent of previous treatment). Factors analyzed: antenatal corticosteroid, cesarean section, BW, GA, 5 min. Apgar score < 4, male gender, Score for Neonatal Acute Physiology Perinatal Extension (SNAPPE II), respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), late sepsis (LS), mechanical ventilation (MV), surfactant (< 2 h of life), and time of MV. death, O2 dependence at 36 weeks (BPD36wks), IVH III/IV, ROPsur, NECsur, and death/BPD36wks. Student's t-test, chi-squared test, or Fisher's exact test; Odds ratio (95% CI); logistic binary regression and backward stepwise multiple regression. Software: MedCalc (Medical Calculator) software, version 12.1.4.0. p-values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. 1,097 newborns were selected and 494 newborns were included: G1 - 187 (37.8%), G2 - 205 (41.5%), and G3 - 102 (20.6%). The highest mortality was observed in G1 (51.3%) and the lowest in G3 (14.7%). The highest frequencies of BPD36wks (70.6%) and ROPsur were observed in G3 (23.5%). The lowest occurrence of death/BPD36wks occurred in G2 (58.0%). Pharmacological (OR 0.29; 95% CI: 0.14-0.62) and conservative (OR 0.34; 95% CI: 0.14-0.79) treatments were protective for the outcome death/BPD36wks. The conservative approach of PDA was associated to high mortality, the surgical approach to the occurrence of BPD36wks and ROPsur, and the pharmacological treatment was protective for the outcome death/BPD36wks.

The patent expiry as a major inflection point in a branded Rx drug's life and strategies to counter generic competition - exemplified at Pfizer's blockbuster drug Lipitor in the USA

A large number of expensive, but highly profitable branded prescription drugs will go off-patent in the USA between 2011 and 2015. Their revenues are crucial to fund the immense costs associated with the development of an innovative drug. The rising cost pressure on pharmaceutical stakeholders has increased the demand for more affordable medications, as provided by the branded drug's generic counterpart. Yet, research based incumbents are moving beyond the traditional late lifecycle strategies and deploy more aggressive tactics in order to protect their brands, as seen with Pfizer's Lipitor!. It is doubtful, whether these efforts will help the blockbuster business model to resist current market conditions.

Silent Patent Ductus Arteriosus Aneurysm

Ductus arteriosus aneurysm, a rare and potentially fatal condition, has been reported as a complication after surgical ductus arteriosus closure. Its spontaneous appearance as a septic complication, which was common in the presurgical and preantibiotic era, has been rarely reported in the contemporary literature. Persistence of silent ductus arteriosus in healthy children and adults is a frequent condition that currently has an increasing diagnostic possibility due to the availability of more accurate investigative methods, especially echocardiography. We report the case of a 1-year-old child, in whom no previous heart disease was known, who developed a giant aneurysm of the ductus arteriosus during a staphylococcal infection. This complication appeared after craniotomy for emptying an accidental subdural hematoma. This report associates the persistence of ductus arteriosus with a complication considered rare, which has a rapidly fatal evolution.

The Technological Specialization of Countries: An Analysis of Patent Data

New methods of analysis of patent statistics allow assessing country profiles of technological specialization for the period 1990-2006. We witness a modest decrease in levels of specialization, which we show to be negatively influenced by country size and degree of internationalization of inventive activities.

Singling out individual inventors from patent data

An increasing number of studies have sprung up in recent years seeking to identify individual inventors from patent data. Different heuristics have been suggested to use their names and other information disclosed in patent documents in order to find out “who is who” in patents. This paper contributes to this literature by setting forth a methodology to identify them using patents applied to the European Patent Office (EPO hereafter). As in the large part of this literature, we basically follow a three-steps procedure: (1) the parsing stage, aimed at reducing the noise in the inventor’s name and other fields of the patent; (2) the matching stage, where name matching algorithms are used to group possible similar names; (3) the filtering stage, where additional information and different scoring schemes are used to filter out these potential same inventors. The paper includes some figures resulting of applying the algorithms to the set of European inventors applying to the EPO for a large period of time.

Patent policy, patent pools, and the accumulation of claims in sequential innovation

We present a dynamic model where the accumulation of patents generates an increasing number of claims on sequential innovation. We compare innovation activity under three regimes -patents, no-patents, and patent pools- and find that none of them can reach the first best. We find that the first best can be reached through a decentralized tax-subsidy mechanism, by which innovators receive a subsidy when they innovate, and are taxed with subsequent innovations. This finding implies that optimal transfers work in the exact opposite way as traditional patents. Finally, we consider patents of finite duration and determine the optimal patent length.

Percutaneous closure of patent foramen ovale: head-to-head comparison of two different devices

Percutaneous closure of patent foramen ovale (PFO) has been proposed as the treatment of choice for young high-risk patients who suffered cryptogenic stroke and/or peripheral paradoxical embolism. We sought to compare prospectively two different devices used for percutaneous PFO closure.Prospective data were collected on 40 high risk patients (females: 38%, mean age : 44 +/- 11 years, interatrial septal aneurysm >10 mm: 68%) who underwent percutaneous PFO closure after cryptogenic stroke (n = 38) or peripheral paradoxical embolism (n = 2). Chronologically, 20 patients were first treated by a PFO-Star (Cardia, Burnsville, MI) device. Then, 20 other patients received a Starflex occluder (NMT, Boston, MA). The primary endpoint was complete PFO closure at 6 months as assessed by transthoracic contrast echocardiography. Secondary endpoints were major peri- or post procedural complications and clinical recurrence at 1 year follow-up.Baseline clinical and anatomical characteristics were comparable for both groups. Complete PFO closure was observed in 50% (PFO-Star) and 90% (Starflex) of patients (p=0.001) respectively. Major peri-procedural complications occurred in the PFO-star group only: right-sided device thrombus (1 patient) and aorto-right atrial fistula (1 patient). At 1 year follow-up, no clinical recurrence occurred.In conclusion, despite the absence of clinical recurrence in this high-risk population with presumed paradoxical embolism, complete PFO closure at 6 months follow-up was significantly related to the type of closure device used

Controlled contrast transcranial Doppler and arterial blood gas analysis to quantify shunt through patent foramen ovale.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: A right-to-left shunt can be identified by contrast transcranial Doppler ultrasonography (c-TCD) at rest and/or after a Valsalva maneuver (VM) or by arterial blood gas (ABG) measurement. We assessed the influence of controlled strain pressures and durations during VM on the right-to-left passage of microbubbles, on which depends the shunt classification by c-TCD, and correlated it with the right-to-left shunt evaluation by ABG measurements in stroke patients with patent foramen ovale (PFO). METHODS: We evaluated 40 stroke patients with transesophageal echocardiography-documented PFO. The microbubbles were recorded with TCD at rest and after 4 different VM conditions with controlled duration and target strain pressures (duration in seconds and pressure in cm H2O, respectively): V5-20, V10-20, V5-40, and V10-40. The ABG analysis was performed after pure oxygen breathing in 34 patients, and the shunt was calculated as percentage of cardiac output. RESULTS: Among all VM conditions, V5-40 and V10-40 yielded the greatest median number of microbubbles (84 and 95, respectively; P&lt;0.01). A significantly larger number of microbubbles were detected in V5-40 than in V5-20 (P&lt;0.001) and in V10-40 than in V10-20 (P&lt;0.01). ABG was not sensitive enough to detect a shunt in 31 patients. CONCLUSIONS: The increase of VM expiratory pressure magnifies the number of microbubbles irrespective of the strain duration. Because the right-to-left shunt classification in PFO is based on the number of microbubbles, a controlled VM pressure is advised for a reproducible shunt assessment. The ABG measurement is not sensitive enough for shunt assessment in stroke patients with PFO.

Differences in the patent management in Brazilian companies with and without plants abroad

This paper compares the procedures of local Brazilian companies (those which have plants in Brazil only) with those of international Brazilian companies (which have plants in at least two countries) regarding the patent management. Although there are a lot more variables to consider when examining the issue of patents in companies, this study presents and analyzes the results of a qualitative research on the decision to patent innovations, the choice of countries where to patent and the strategic significance of patents to the company.

Late morbidity during childhood and adolescence in previously premature neonates after patent ductus arteriosus closure.

The health status of previously premature neonates after closure of a patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) was analyzed in childhood and adolescence. Physician questionnaires were used to study 180 hospital survivors among 210 consecutive premature neonates who underwent PDA closure between 1985 and 2005. Complete follow-up data were obtained for 129 patients (72%). During a median follow-up period of 7 years (range, 2-22 years), three late deaths (2.3%) had occurred. Only 45% of the patients were considered healthy. Morbidity included developmental delay (41.1%), pulmonary illness (12.4%), neurologic impairment (14.7%), hearing impairment (3.9%), gastrointestinal disease (3.1%), and thoracic deformity (1.2%). None of the adverse variables during the neonatal period (intraventricular hemorrhage, bradycardia apnea syndrome, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, pulmonary bleeding, hyaline membrane disease, artificial respiration time [continuous positive airway pressure + intubation], or necrotizing enterocolitis) statistically predicted respective system morbidity at the follow-up evaluation. Hyaline membrane disease (odds ratio, 2.5; p = 0.026) and longer hospitalization time (odds ratio, 1.2 days per 10 hospitalization days; p = 0.032) in the newborn period were significant predictors of an unhealthy outcome at the last follow-up evaluation. Survival until childhood after closure of a hemodynamically significant PDA in premature neonates is satisfactory. However, physical and neurodevelopmental co-morbidity persist for half of the patients, perhaps as a sequela of prematurity unrelated to ductus closure.

Patent foramen ovale and obstructive sleep apnoea: from pathophysiology to diagnosis of a potentially dangerous association.

Patent foramen ovale and obstructive sleep apnoea are frequently encountered in the general population. Owing to their prevalence, they may coexist fortuitously; however, the prevalence of patent foramen ovale seems to be higher in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea. We have reviewed the epidemiological data, pathophysiology, and the diagnostic and therapeutic options for both patent foramen ovale and obstructive sleep apnoea. We focus on the interesting pathophysiological links that could explain a potential association between both pathologies and their implications, especially on the risk of stroke.