Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Picnic Rock Fire, CO Click here to view full image (722 kb) This image of the Picnic Rock Fire near Ft. Collins, Colorado was taken mid-morning on April 1, 2004 when the fire covered approximately 5,500 acres. Data from the shortwave, near-infrared, and visible portions of the electromagnetic spectrum reveal actively burning areas (yellow and pink pixels). The burn scar appears brown, while fields cleared for planting are tan and emerging crops and grasslands are light green. Developed areas, including Fort Collins in the lower right corner of the image, are purple. By April 7th the fire was 95% contained, and had consumed 8,900 acres in a mostly uninhabited area. The image was acquired by the Thematic Mapper instrument aboard the Landsat 5 satellite. Image provided by the USGS EROS Data Center Satellite Systems Branch Recommend this Image to a Friend Back to: Newsroom Also see   Latest Images View Images Index   Satellite Data and Computer Models Predict Growth   Fires in Sierra Leone   “Hurricane” Catarina hits Brazil 7:20:50 PM    comment []

Insourced investments lead to imbalanced trade The issue of outsourcing has become one of the most fiercely debated topics in the current political climate.  Rather than address in any substantive way the anxiety of American workers over this issue, a growing group of politicians and pundits have begun using the term "insourcing" to refer to foreign companies' investments in the United States, suggesting that insourcing has the opposite effect on U.S. jobs and trade as offshore outsourcing.  The April 6 snapshot showed that this so-called insourcing has not boosted U.S. jobs.  In addition to its failure to promote job growth, insourcing has also worsened the U.S. trade balance. The figure below shows imports, exports, and trade balances across 1991 to 2001 for U.S. firms owned by foreign companies. Total U.S. exports from these foreign-owned firms, gradually rose from $97 billion in 1991 to $164 billion in 2001, an increase of 69%.  Since all other U.S. exports rose by an even faster rate of 74.2%, insourcing does appear to be a boon to U.S. exports.  At the same time, total imports of foreign-owned companies in the United States more than doubled, climbing from $179 billion in 1991 to $369 billion in 2001. As a result, the U.S. trade deficits of foreign-owned firms rose from $82 billion to $206 billion in this period, an increase of 152%. Often these foreign companies are investing in the United States in order to obtain access to U.S. marketing and distribution systems (including U.S. brand names) for their imported products—a process that does not create production jobs in the United States or lead to more balanced trade. The surging trade deficits of foreign-owned companies in the United States are evidence that insourcing is actually worsening the U.S. trade deficit. Thus, both the job and trade statistics refute the argument that insourcing represents a counterweight to the negative effect of offshoring on U.S. jobs and trade. Source: Zeile, William J.  2003. "U.S. affiliates of foreign companies: Operations in 2001."  Survey of Current Business. August, pp. 38-56. Table 8. Today's snapshot was written by EPI senior economist Robert Scott with research assistance by Adam Hersh 7:14:41 PM    comment []

Industry Groups Seek Restriction Of Copper-Scrap Exports to China By PAUL GLADER Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL April 8, 2004 Two metals-industry groups filed a petition with the Commerce Department to restrict exports of copper scrap and copper-alloy scrap to China, saying China's rising imports from the U.S. have caused shortages and price increases. The Copper and Brass Fabricators Council Inc., in Washington, and the Non-Ferrous Founders' Society, based in Park Ridge, Ill., say their members are having difficulty obtaining raw materials and managing price increases and believe export restrictions would help control domestic supply. Copper is found in an array of industrial and consumer products, from refrigerator tubing to personal computers. But some observers believe the groups will have a tough time persuading the current administration, in an election year, to ban exports, which would be interpreted as an attack on free-trade policies. Lloyd O'Carroll, chief economist and metals analyst with BB&T Capital Markets in Richmond, Va., said such export bans are a "short-term fix," that in six months, the problem may have passed. The Commerce Department has 105 days to determine whether to impose temporary monitoring and export controls and 45 days more to publish final regulations and effect any possible relief. 7:10:41 PM    comment []

Arctic melt may dry out US west coast   19:00 06 April 04   Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.   Cities and towns along the west coast of the US could be suffering from a serious water shortage by 2050, thanks to global warming. As Arctic sea ice melts, annual rainfall may drop by as much as 30 per cent from Seattle to Los Angeles, and inland as far as the Rocky Mountains. As temperatures rise over the next 50 years, the area of Arctic sea ice is predicted to shrink by as much as 50 per cent in some areas during the summer. To find out what this would mean for climate, Jacob Sewall and Lisa Cirbus Sloan from the University of California at Santa Cruz first used a climate model to work out how sea ice cover was likely to change through the rest of the year. Then they took these values for sea ice cover and the resulting sea surface temperatures, and plugged those into a global climate model to see which areas of the world would be most affected. While Europe got off quite lightly, they found that the sea ice changes are likely to mean significantly fewer storms will pass over the west coast of the US. "Winter sea ice acts like an insulating lid," explains Sewall. "When the lid is reduced, more heat can escape from the ocean to warm the atmosphere." Tower of air Towers of warm air form above areas where sea ice has been lost, and that disturbs the flow of air in the atmosphere around them, "like the supports under a bridge alter the flow of water in a river." In their model Sewall and Cirbus Sloan found that such towers formed between Norway and Greenland, deflecting winter storms that would otherwise have passed over the west coast of the US towards northern British Columbia and southern Alaska. These areas received six per cent more rain, while southern British Columbia down to southern California suffered a 30 per cent drop. The researchers will publish their results in a future issue of Geophysical Research Letters. "Given that water resources in this region are currently stretched close to their limit, a 30 per cent drop would have a serious impact," says Sewall. Water levels in reservoirs would probably drop, making water rationing a necessity. Meanwhile agriculture would suffer from a lack of water for irrigation and famous national parks, such as Yosemite in California, could change completely as natural ecosystems adapted to a drier climate.     Subscribe to New Scientist for more news and features   Related Stories   Soot worse for global warming than thought 22 December 2003   Glacier crack places Peruvian city in peril 15 April 2003   Ice storm danger melting away 27 December 2002     For more related stories search the print edition Archive     Weblinks   Earth Sciences, University of California at Santa Cruz   National Center for Atmospheric Research   Geophysical Research Letters     Global impact However, Sewall is careful to point out that so far they have only modelled the impact of reduced Arctic sea ice cover. Other climate factors, such as increasing greenhouse gases, might interact with melting Arctic sea ice, reducing, or even exacerbating, any changes in rainfall. The research "needs more work to become a prediction," agrees Marika Holland, a climate modeller at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. But she says the study "highlights the importance of regional changes associated with a distant location". Even though the changes in sea ice between Norway and Greenland were relatively small, they were enough to have a significant impact across the globe.   Kate Ravilious 7:01:51 PM    comment []

Unique full-frontal portrait reveals pharaoh's face   17:40 02 April 04   NewScientist.com news service   The red lines painted across the picture suggest it was the template for a carving (Image: Jose Manuel Galan)   The first full-frontal portrait of an Egyptian pharaoh has been discovered by archaeologists. It is thought to be more than 3500 years old. 7:00:35 PM    comment []

LEGAL MARKET INFORMATION: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/articles/brief/05law.career_brief.php 6:55:10 PM    comment []

"CONSISTING OF" DOES NOT CLOSE A CLAIM ACCORDING TO THE CAFC: In Norian Corp. v. Stryker Corp., __ F.3d __ (Fed. Cir. April 6, 2004) (Newman, J.), from 252 F. Supp.2d 945 (N.D. Cal. 2002), a split panel holds that the term "consisting of" is not limited to the elements set forth in the claim - a point that drew a sharp dissent from a member of the court not known for issuing dissents in patent cases. Norian provides additional fuel to the fire of critics who have been charging that decisions at the Federal Circuit on claim construction are unpredictable and often panel-dependent. The patentee Norian claimed "[a] kit for preparing a calcium mineral, said kit consisting of: [i] at least one calcium source and at least one phosphoric acid source free of uncombined water as dry ingredients; and [ii] a solution consisting of water and a sodium phosphate" (and further specifying concentration and pH values). The accused infringing kit contains both elements [i] and [ii] and "a spatula"; the majority ignores the spatula as avoiding infringement. The dissent points to a departure from established precedent where "consisting of" is a term of art that limits the scope of the claim to the specified elements without any additional elements: "Our case law makes it clear that ' 'closed' transition phrases such as 'consisting of' are understood to exclude any elements, steps, or ingredients not specified in the claim.' AFG Indus., Inc. v. Cardinal IG Co., Inc., 239 F.3d 1239, 1245 (Fed. Cir. 2001); see also Manual of Patent Examining Procedure 2111.03 (8th ed. 2001). Thus, we have held that 'consisting of' is a narrow phrase that limits the scope of a claim to the enumerated elements in that claim. See Georgia-Pacific Corp. v. United States Gypsum Co., 195 F.3d 1322, 1327-28 (Fed. Cir. 1999) (quoting Manual of Patent Examining Procedure  2111.03 (6th ed. 1997)); Vehicular Techs. Corp. v. Titan Wheel Int'l, Inc., 212 F.3d 1377, 1383 (Fed. Cir. 2000) ('In simple terms, a drafter uses the phrase 'consisting of' to mean 'I claim what follows and nothing else.')." Norian, __ F.3d at __ (Schall, J., dissenting). Judge Schall "think[s] it is important for us to construe the 'consisting of' language [ ] in line with our prior jurisprudence because of the public notice function that a patent and its claims serve. Springs Window Fashions LP v. Novo Indus., LP, 323 F.3d 989, 995 (Fed. Cir. 2003) ('The public notice function of a patent and its prosecution history requires that a patentee be held to what he declares during the prosecution of his patent. A patentee may not state during prosecution that the claims do not cover a particular device and then change position and later sue a party who makes that same device for infringement.'). The public relies on the words of a patentee's claims to determine the scope of the claims and to form a business strategy. If [the patentee] erred by employing the phrase 'consisting of' rather than 'comprising,' and thereby mistakenly acquired claims that were not as broad as it intended, it must bear the consequences. Sage Prods., Inc. v. Devon Indus., Inc., 126 F.3d 1420, 1425 (Fed. Cir. 1997) ('However, as between the patentee who had a clear opportunity to negotiate broader claims but did not do so, and the public at large, it is the patentee who must bear the cost of its failure to seek protection for this foreseeable alteration of its claimed structure.'). I do not believe that we should change the meaning of a well established phrase to save a patentee from a decision to limit its claims." Id. 5:51:44 AM    comment []