Large Number Of Patents Research Articles

Vinylnorbornene: Preparation, chemical transformations, and use in organic synthesis and polymer chemistry. Vinylnorbornene synthesis and isomerization to ethylidenenorbornene (Review)

The last reviews devoted to the synthesis of 5-vinyl-2-norbornene and its isomerization to 5-ethylidene-2-norbornene were published in 1976–1977. The interest in the practical and theoretical aspects of this problem still does not wane, thus stimulating further investigations. A large number of patents and scientific articles have been published in the last 30 years and need to be summarized. This review elucidates the state of art of manufacture of 5-ethylidene-2-norbornene, the best third monomer for ethylene-propylene rubber. The results of new investigations concerning the manufacture of 5-vinyl-2-norbornene and its isomerization to 5-ethylidene-2-norbornene and vinylnortricyclene are considered. The most active base and coordination catalysts that have found application in industry are characterized. The mechanisms and stereochemistry of 5-vinyl-2-norbornene isomerization are discussed.

Listeria-Based Anti-Infective Vaccine Strategies

Listeria monocytogenes is a Gram-positive intracellular bacterium that has accounted for a significant proportion of human foodborne infections in recent decades. Although infection with sublethal level of L. monocytogenes generates enduring immunity, it is impractical to apply intact virulent strains as vaccine. Through use of killed, attenuated, naturally avirulent, subcellular and DNA vaccine preparations, significant protection has been achieved in experimental animals against listeriosis. Being a robust bacterium capable of eliciting all aspects of cell-mediated immunity, L. monocytogenes has the potential to become an ideal vector for vaccine delivery against other infective agents. Furthermore, with a high safety threshold, L. monocytogenes has increasingly been recognized as a vaccine vector of choice for a range of bacterial, viral and parasitic pathogens. Not surprisingly, a large number of patents have been filed in recent years that exploit attenuated or naturally avirulent L. monocytogenes strains or its listeriolysin (LLO) protein to enhance specific T cell response in the vaccine recipients or to direct vaccine molecule to the cytoplasm of host cells. Following a brief review on the key features of L. monocytogenes infection and host immune responses to listeriosis, this article summarizes the current state and recent progresses in the Listeria-based vaccine strategies that have been developed against bacterial, viral and parasitic diseases, together with a discussion on the future development trends in the utilization of L. monocytogenes as vaccine vector.

Rhenium promotion of Ag and Cu–Ag bimetallic catalysts for ethylene epoxidation

Rhenium remains the least understood promoter of silver catalysts for the epoxidation of ethylene. While a large number of patents can be found claiming the use of rhenium to yield ethylene oxide selectivities over 80%, very little is present in the open literature to explain these results. In this work we report initial studies of rhenium promoted Ag and Cu–Ag bimetallic catalysts under chlorine-free operating conditions. Rhenium addition improves the selectivity of both the monometallic and bimetallic catalysts, while decreasing activity in each case. Optimization of preparation procedures shows maximum ethylene oxide selectivities are obtained with rhenium loadings of 25 ppm for the monometallic catalysts and between 50 and 100 ppm for Cu–Ag bimetallic catalysts. The reaction kinetics for rhenium-promoted Ag and unpromoted Ag catalysts suggest that the catalysts containing rhenium present a more uniform distribution of sites for oxygen adsorption than do unpromoted catalysts, thus enhancing the ethylene oxide selectivity.

Recent Progress in the Development of Adenosine Receptor Ligands as Antiinflammatory Drugs

Adenosine receptors belong to the family of G protein-coupled receptors. Four distinct subtypes are known, termed A(1), A(2A), A(2B) and A(3). Adenosine is an important signaling molecule which is released under inflammatory conditions. It can show antiinflammatory as well as proinflammatory activities, and the contribution of the specific adenosine receptor subtypes in various cells, tissues and organs is complex. Agonists selective for adenosine A(1) receptors show antinociceptive activity and are active in animal models of neuropathic and inflammatory pain. Adenosine A(2A) receptor agonists are potent antiinflammatory drugs. A(2A)-selective antagonists have shown antihyperalgesic activity in animal models of inflammatory pain. For A(2B)agonists as well as A(2B) antagonists antiinflammatory activity has been postulated. Selective A(2B) antagonists were shown to decrease (inflammatory) pain, and are promising candidates for the treatment of asthma. Adenosine A(3) receptor agonists appear to be proinflammatory, while there is evidence for an antiinflammatory effect of A(3) antagonists. There are some contradictory findings, and A(3) agonists are being developed for the treatment of inflammatory diseases such as arthritis. Indirect mechanisms increasing the extracellular concentration of adenosine using adenosine kinase inhibitors, adenosine deaminase inhibitors or adenosine uptake inhibitors, or increasing the potency of adenosine at the A(1) receptor subtype by allosteric modulators lead to potent antinociceptive and antiinflammatory activity. The advantage of indirectly acting drugs may be their site- and event-specific action since they are only active where adenosine has been released. In the past decade considerable progress has been made towards the identification of novel lead structures and the development of potent and selective ligands for all four adenosine receptor subtypes. A large number of patents has recently been filed and the field is finally in the process of translating many years of basic science into therapeutic application. This review article will focus on compounds published or patented within the past three years.

Finance and Innovation: The Case of Publicly Traded Firms

We hypothesize that public firms that create novel innovations rely more on arm's length financing (equity and public debt) than on relationship based bank financing. A primary reason is that banks, unable to evaluate novel technologies, will tend to discourage investing in innovative projects and be more prone to shut down ones that are ongoing. Using a large panel of US companies from 1974-2000, we find that consistent with our predictions, firms that rely more on arm's length financing have a larger number of patents and these patents are more significant in terms of influencing subsequent patents. We confirm our findings by showing a significant increase in innovative activity of firms following a large infusion of arm's length financing and no such pattern after a similar infusion of bank loans. Creating novel innovations leads to a significantly higher firm value and suggests that firms would rationally take into account the potential impact of innovative activity when making their financing choices. Finally, we use an IV approach to ameliorate endogeneity concerns and demonstrate that our findings are driven primarily by innovative firms choosing their financing arrangements.

Using patents to mislead rivals

Abstract. Firms claim they do not rely heavily on patents. Yet they patent, as indicated by the large number of patents that are granted. This paper offers a possible resolution to this puzzle. It takes a simplified version of a duopoly innovation race and studies the patenting decision of an innovator who has private information about the improvability of her innovation. It is shown that a firm may use the patenting decision to mislead her rival. Under symmetric information, research can be stimulated but not disclosed. However, under asymmetric information, disclosure is more likely, even though research incentive may be weakened. JEL Classification: 031, L1

Patenting Strategy of Entrepreneurial Orientated Firms in New Zealand

Patenting is regarded as an important area for firms wanting to capture the strategic value of intellectual property. Further, patents are often used as a proxy for innovation— i.e., a firm with a large number of patents is said to be innovative. At the same time, a firm that is innovative is also said to have an entrepreneurial orientation (EO). In spite of this apparent linkage between an EO and patenting, little empirical evidence strategically links the two constructs. This paper addresses this gap by providing one of the first studies examining the relationship between an EO and patenting.

Foreign Direct Investment and Knowledge Flows: Evidence from Patent Citations

Knowledge flows tend to be highly geographically localized. This has lead researchers to try to find a means through which this localization effect can be minimized. Foreign Direct Investment has been proposed as a possible medium that enhances the ability of nations to exchange knowledge about new ideas. In this paper I use data on more than 1.8 million patents granted in the US and 8.8 million citations belonging to firms of more than thirty countries to determine whether FDI facilitates the flow of knowledge between firms of different nationality. The results indicate a strong positive effect of FDI on knowledge flows. Specifically, I find that on average for all countries in the sample 1) domestic firms are 57% more likely to receive knowledge from foreign firms when the latter are located in the same country. 2) Foreign firms are 78% more likely to receive knowledge from domestic firms when they are located in the same country 3) an extra $1 million in FDI leads to an average of 4% increase in knowledge flows between the investing and the host nations. These results are robust to dropping the US - the country with the largest number of patents in the sample - and to splitting it along economic development lines, and by technological field. I find that Developed Countries' firms can expect to gain knowledge equally well both by locating abroad in countries where intense innovative activity takes place and from MNC subsidiaries that open affiliates in their home country. However, for Newly Industrialized Countries (NIC's), knowledge flows from inward FDI to domestic firms is more than three times as large as that for domestic firms of Developed countries. For NIC's outward FDI, there is no difference between what the home-base can obtain by monitoring the activities of innovating firms abroad from their headquarters at home, and what they can get from their affiliates overseas. Thus, for NIC's it is much more pertinent to try to attract inward FDI than to worry about investing abroad.

Bibliometric performance measures

Three different types of bibliometrics — literature bibliometrics, patent bibliometrics, and linkage bibliometric can all be used to address various government performance and results questions. Applications of these three bibliometric types will be described within the framework of Weinberg's internal and external criteria, whether the work being done is good science, efficiently and effectively done, and whether it is important science from a technological viewpoint. Within all bibliometrics the fundamental assumption is that the frequency with which a set of papers or patents is cited is a measure of the impact or influence of the set of papers. The literature bibliometric indicators are counts of publications and citations received in the scientific literature and various derived indicators including such phenomena as cross-sectoral citation, coauthorship and concentration within influential journals. One basic observation of literature bibliometrics, which carries over to patent bibliometrics, is that of highly skewed distributions — with a relatively small number of high-impact patents and papers, and large numbers of patents and papers of minimal impact. The key measure is whether an agency is producing or supporting highly cited papers and patents. The final set of data are in the area of linkage bibliometrics, looking at citations from patents to scientific papers. These are particularly relevant to the external criteria, in that it is quite obvious that institutions and supporting agencies whose papers are highly cited in patents are making measurable contributions to a nation's technological progress.

Cooperative R&D in government laboratories: comparing the US and Japan

Cooperative technology policy activities of US and Japanese government laboratories are compared to determine the extent, structural patterns, motives, and consequences of cooperative R&D. Based on survey data from US federal laboratories and Japanese national laboratories, the study shows that government laboratories of the respective nations are quite similar with regard to laboratory missions and motives for cooperative R&D. But the labs' cooperative R&D activities diverge in several ways. First, compared to Japanese government labs, US government labs have, on average, more than twice as many cooperative R&D agreements. However, Japanese labs have a higher percentage of agreements with industry and nonprofit organizations, and with foreign organizations. US laboratories with a larger number of cooperative R&D agreements have a larger number of patents and somewhat higher ratings of technology transfer effectiveness. Japanese labs with a larger number of R&D agreements also have more patents but lower ratings of technology transfer effectiveness. Finally, lab directors in the US and Japan diverge considerably in their assessments of the contribution of cooperative R&D to the effectiveness of various lab research missions.

Ransome at Bayonne

The Anglo-Californian engineer, Ernest L. Ransome, has a secure place in the annals of reinforced concrete because of the very large number of patents issued to him in the last two decades of the 19th century. At the end of the sequence, in 1902, comes a patented "system" which foreshadows modern concrete-framed factory-construction. Ransome clearly understood the difference between wall-and-window and frame-and-fill, but the building where he made the change, the Pacific Coast Borax plant at Bayonne, New Jersey, has been overlooked so far by historians. The article gives a brief account of the structure, which is still standing in all its crucial parts, and attempts an assessment of its historical importance for later developments, such as the rise of the International Style.

New curing techniques in industrial coatings

The onslaught of automation in the industrial coatings area is an irreversible one. For this reason, the manufacturers who coat in‐plant seize eagerly upon developments such as high‐energy radiation curing and ultraviolet curing. Interest in these techniques is developing rapidly as indicated by the large number of patents which are beginning to evolve. The advantages of these methods have been detailed in previous reviews. Some of the more recent literature is described in this article.

Degradation of Rubber by Chemical Agents in Solution

Abstract It is clear that the subject of polymer degradation by chemical agents is an active branch of polymer chemistry. This is reflected in the large number of patents applying to polymer degradation and no attempt has been made to include every appropriate patent. Much of the comparative work is based on equal weights, rather than equal numbers of molecules, so that the true comparisons of the efficiency of peptizers are often difficult. It has been shown that polymer degradation can proceed via several mechanisms all of which involve free radicals and the main points can be summarized as follows :— In solutions at low temperatures the initiatory free radicals come from the added peptizer such as benzoyl peroxide or bis-azoisobutyronitrile. Although oxygen accelerates the reaction, it is not essential, and there is appreciable degradation in the absence of oxygen. Thiols are active only when oxygen is present even at high temperature. This is somewhat surprising, since the rubber radicals produced by thermal scission should be just as active as those produced by mastication and be capable of reaction with thiols, and serves to emphasize the importance of the role of oxygen in peptization by thiols and disulfides. Oxygen is also necessary for degradation by redox systems and in its absence structurizing takes place. The lack of work on triphenyl methane derivatives is somewhat surprising in view of the ease with which they undergo homolysis to give free radicals. However, it is not sufficient to introduce any type of free radical and expect degradation: stabilized free radicals are the best peptizers, unstable radicals can add to olefinic bonds and cause crosslinking rather than chain scission. Squalene has been used as a model compound for the study of the reactions of natural rubber with free radicals in a similar manner to the use of methylcyclohexene as a model compound for oxidation studies. This review forms part of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the London University M.Sc. (External) Examination.