IdoRA

> In nonprovisional applications, applicants and other individuals substantively involved with the preparation and/or prosecution of the application have a duty to submit to the Office information which is material to patentability as defined in 37 CFR 1.56.

See https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s609.html

In addition to those, I also like to cook in donabes: I use a portable butane stove. I don’t think you’re missing anything, even if you could get an induction setup to work you have to make too many compromises to make it worthwhile.

You do need to be careful using carbon steel on induction, at least until you get the hang of it: the instant heat makes warpage easy to encounter, especially if the coil is undersized relative to the pan (US portable hobs have tiny diameter coils).

If you’re willing to use a cast iron wok, Lodge makes one with a flat bottom on the outside but curved on the inside. You have to make some major technique concessions, but it will work on induction, and if you use a butane torch while flipping food you can almost get a wok hei going.

This has sort of been my experience with induction beyond woks too, it often requires technique and equipment concessions. Great for boiling water and sautéing though. The tops also have durability/longevity issues when compared to gas and that isn’t usually acknowledged.

Are you familiar with the area? I’ve been here since ‘89. Those streets cannot handle the volume of traffic we’re talking about. There aren’t enough gas stations for the truck volume we’re talking about either.

I don’t see how you can stop, for example, the flow of Rt. 17 truck traffic onto I-95 diverting to the surface streets. Something like 75% of the 95 traffic in the affected section is not local. How do you ensure that they not use 95 and also not use the surface streets (which in this area are absolutely not capable of handling their current traffic, let alone overflow from the highway)?

I’ve lived here for decades, so I am very familiar with the weather here—I am of the opinion that it was an unusual volume of rain leading up to the snowfall, rain all night before transitioning to heavy snowfall early AM where I am.

Closing the freeway feels like a good idea, but then you’d have ~130,000 cars/day traveling on surface streets? The Rappahannock doesn’t allow for many crossings other than 95.

Part of the reason there is unusually high traffic in that location is the confluence of two things: one is that local traffic doesn’t have a great alternative to 95 over the Rappahannock river (the local Rt. 17/1 interchange is famously awful) so you take 95, and the other is that there is a large amount of truck traffic between Rt. 17 and 95. Basically over the span of the Stafford/F’burg area 95 sees an additional ~30k cars/day. There are road improvements in progress but they are too little, too late.

I lived in Rochester. At least when I was up there, there may have been a hundred inches of snow in the year, but there was rarely fresh ice. This storm delivered a sheet of ice with snow on top, and because of the earlier rain, you couldn’t pre-treat the roads. How does the northeast deal with those conditions, other than people being smart enough to stay home? How do plows remove ice when the roads can’t be pretreated? I’m very, very open to the idea that VDOT is doing a bad job with winter road maintenance, but “more plows” isn’t a convincing improvement plan for the wintery mix seen here.

Does increased numbers of plows allow you to clean this portion of road quickly enough to keep it navigable? The main issue is that the road is a sheet of ice, so as I understand it you really need chemical treatments, not just snow removal (although snow removal should certainly help). And does the density of cars pose a unique problem? The F’burg portion of 95 sees around 130,000 cars/day pre-pandemic.

The average doesn’t tell the whole story. F’burg weather is strange, it never seems to line up with Richmond nor DC. We’ve gotten these sorts of snowfalls every 5–10 years since the 80s, give or take: https://fredericksburg.com/lifestyles/johnston-a-look-back-a...

In this case, a major issue was that the weather was rain transitioning to heavy snowfall. VDOT couldn’t pre-treat the roads because the rain would wash it away, and they couldn’t clear the roads of snow fast enough to prevent ice formation. Similar to the Atlanta “snowmageddon” in 2014, once you have enough 18-wheelers stopped, they can’t start moving again on ice, and they (plus the normal car traffic) clog the roads enough that the snow trucks can’t operate. I am having difficulty envisioning how a hypercompetent northeastern DOT could do better in these circumstances, other than improved communication.

Cash is not free to handle. Considering the whole “cash lifecycle”: shrinkage, cost of secure transport to the bank, &c., costs can be up to 8% for some industry sectors.

Vegetables Unleashed by José Andrés and Matt Goulding is great.

Juries are common in civil trials in the US.

More or less. I used to run samples of water from student’s canteens on a Thermo Scientific Element 2 (an exquisitely sensitive mass spectrometer) in their presence, knowing I would find uranium and lead in it. Not a lot, but it’s there. The point to the students was the dose makes the poison, more or less.

Interesting to read in light of Ginkgo going public today: https://blog.ycombinator.com/ginkgo-bioworks-s14-is-going-pu...

A lot of people in the NOVA area are commuting to DC/MD and vice versa. It seems like you’d need to be able to fairly exclude resident out of state driving for the proposal to be viable?

Considering the doctrine of claim differentiation, your hypothetical could still be infringing Claim 1. You’d have to consider the spec, among other things, to persuasively argue one way or the other.

There’s a difference between being “leg tall” and “torso tall”. If you’re the latter, it’s hard to predict what cars will actually fit unless you sit in them, especially if they have a sunroof.

> Easier to flee from a baseball bat man than a gun man.

Perhaps if you are able bodied and min good health, but not everyone is so fortunate.

From a regulatory perspective, you are saying that the FDA has done something that they did not do. “Approved”, “cleared”, “granted”, and “authorized” all have distinct meanings.

The FDA has recently issued draft guidance for such: https://endpts.com/for-tailored-single-person-antisense-olig...

Several of the factors considered in trademark infringement are the use of the mark in commerce, that use being connected to the sale (including distribution or advertising) of the marked product, and naturally, likelihood of consumer confusion.

A pro-restaurant argument might be that these alternative websites are interfering with new and extant restaurant-customer relationships, falsely implying a restaurant-delivery co. affiliation, and that the use by the delivery co. of the restaurant trademarks exceeds nominative use. The restaurants might also argue that the distribution of food, how and under what conditions, is part of their product: a delivery company taking too long to deliver an order could harm the quality of their product.

I am familiar with Heller.

The temporary surrender under 5207(b) is quite limited both in scope and duration, more than you suggest:

> Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit any person in subsection (a) from requiring the temporary surrender of a firearm as a condition for entry into any mode of transportation used for rescue or evacuation during a major disaster or emergency, provided that such temporarily surrendered firearm is returned at the completion of such rescue or evacuation.

The reference you make to “otherwise authorized to carry firearms…” (I assume) in 5207(a)(4) is also more limited in scope than you state:

> prohibit the carrying of firearms by any person otherwise authorized to carry firearms under Federal, State, or local law, solely because such person is operating under the direction, control, or supervision of a Federal agency in support of relief from the major disaster or emergency.

I do know of states that relax bearing of arms during an emergency (Florida) and several that largely mirror the federal code. You’ve made a very broad claim that “Legally, you're allowed to use emergency powers to suspend open/concealed carry.” that I don’t think holds across the entire US, and I am skeptical would hold even across a majority of the US. Some concrete examples would be helpful.

> Legally, you're allowed to use emergency powers to suspend open/concealed carry.

No. See for example 42 USC 5207 at the federal level. The southern states I’m familiar with have similar provisions, unsure of others.

To add dang (and for others), for future reference: in regulatory affairs, “cleared”, “approved”, “granted”, and “authorized” are distinct actions for the FDA. These verbs are not interchangeable and using the wrong word can bring significant (financial, for the associated company) consequences because it implies that the FDA did something they did not, e.g., cleared for a 510(k) device vs granted for a de novo device.

Publication does not equate to public domain: the manuscript itself is likely subject to some sort of copyright, and the underlying research may be the subject matter of one or more patents (pending or otherwise).

I did, earlier, because they were a part of the article.

Ultimately we don’t know the legal basis of the seizure, it isn’t in the CBP presser and The Verge reporter writes he has no idea of the basis either.

I disagree with the assumption that CBP made an error, with the exception of their presser inducing eye rolling. Maybe they did, but to me it looks like they are acting within their scope.

My guess was this was connected to a 337 case, which is possible although the only OnePlus case I could find is a year old. Seizing goods on import is precisely the purpose of that mechanism. On reflection I am probably wrong about 337 litigation.

Another possibility is that this is related to design infringement, supported by Apple and AirPods being mentioned prominently. CBP is supposed to keep (their definition of) counterfeit goods from entering. If you compare the picture of the box of seized earphones, and then this marketing picture of the AirPods, wouldn’t you think that an average consumer could be confused? I have not reviewed the design patents for the AirPods, but I also don’t think it’s unfair to say that the OnePlus version have a lot in common. There are many design patents covering Apple earphones that could be relevant too.

https://images.app.goo.gl/z2fmWXFGGiGMuQ8s9

This is probably a combination of a Section 337 investigation by the USITC that includes OnePlus in its scope and directs CBP to seize certain OnePlus goods, a bombastic press release from CBP, and The Verge reporter not being insightful and generating clickbait.

https://www.usitc.gov/press_room/news_release/2019/er0926ll1...