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Cities consume almost 80 percent of world’s energy and account for 60 percent of all the emissions of carbon dioxide and significant amounts of other greenhouse gases (GHG). The ongoing rapid urbanization will further increase GHG emissions of cities. The quantification of the environmental impact generated in cities is an important step to curb the impact. In fact, quantifying the consumption activities taking place inside a city, if differentiated by socioeconomic and demographic groups, can provide important insights for sustainable-consumption policies. However, the lack of high-resolution data related to these activities makes it difficult to quantify urban GHG emissions (as well as other impacts). This paper presents a methodology that can quantify the carbon footprint of households in cities using consumption data from a national or European level, where the resource consumption is linked to socioeconomic attributes of a population. The methodology is applied to analyzing the environmental impact by household resource consumption in the city of The Hague in the Netherlands. The key insights reveal potential intervention areas regarding resource consumption categories and demographic groups that can be targeted to reduce GHG emissions due to consumption-driven activities in the city.

Patent pools collect patents from multiple patentees and license them out as a package. They offer one-stop-shop licensing efficiencies, reduce transaction costs, and increase the predictability of the licensing environment for the benefit of innovation diffusion. However, pools failed to take off for previous cellular standards. This article analyses both retrospectively the reasons for such failures and prospectively what makes the 5G environment more conductive to pool formation and licensing. Avanci, a patent pool for licensing cellular standards in the Internet of Things (IoT), is a significant development but has limited licensing coverage so far. The article then recommends five policy principles to facilitate pool licensing in the IoT. They include recognising that only enough upstream SEP owners need to join the 5G pool to create a market signalling effect. Some vertically integrated SEP owners may remain outsiders, and some bilateral licensing may co-exist without damaging the pool’s success. To encourage upstream SEP owners to join the pool, they should be allowed to set ‘high enough’ royalty rates and divide pools’ royalties among members under value proportionality rules. 5G pools must also be flexible and adopt different licensing programs that consider the specificities of each IoT market. Finally, pool administrators should consult with IoT implementers before establishing licensing programs for them and have infringement legal standing if everything else fails. These principles would go a long way in spurring the broader use of 5G pool licensing for a more efficient, straightforward, and predict- able IoT licensing environment.

Change in consumer behavior that leads to increased waste separation and recycling has been identified as a critical component of Chinese national strategy for constructing a “Circular Economy”. Various innovative solutions at community level targeting consumer behaviors are emerging in Chinese cities, using information technology that can track the volume and quality of the sorting process. In order to evaluate the potential impact of these novel solutions, we studied the behavioral change of households by initiating an experimental recycling program in a residential community in Beijing, and developed an Agent Based Model based on Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to identify key factors in changing behavior. The results show that the Social Norm (SN) has a decisive effect on whether an area starts recycling or not. As to the effectiveness of intervention, the Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC) plays a large role in the determination of the recycling behavior in this study, while the role of attitude is relatively small. The model outcomes can be corroborated with observations in different communities using similar technical solutions. In conclusion, we suggest that efficient local interactions among various stakeholders are needed in forming the social norm and common space that favorite recycling activities at the community level.

As energy systems grow more complex, modeling efforts spanning multiple scales, disciplines and perspectives are essential. Improved methods are needed to guide the development of not just individual models, but also multi-model ecologies – systems of interacting models. Currently there is a lack of knowledge concerning how multi-model ecologies can and should be designed to facilitate adequate understanding of energy system complexity and its consequences. Via an analysis of twelve multi-model initiatives both within and outside the energy domain, this paper elucidates possible design patterns and development paths for multi-model ecologies. The results highlight two broad paths to developing energy system multi-model ecologies, one prioritizing interoperability and the other prioritizing diversity. The former path facilitates the efficient development of models spanning multiple scales and (to a degree) disciplines, and can ease systematic testing of assumptions. The latter is suited to bridging traditional disciplines and perspectives and advancing knowledge within the interstices of different knowledge communities. It is furthermore suggested that a combination of diversity, connectivity and hierarchy in multi-model ecology composition is central to enabling the development of complex webs of models capable of addressing the complexity of real-world energy systems.

To lower the emissions of deep sea shipping, policymakers aim to decrease the use of heavy fuel oil (HFO) as a maritime fuel. Multiple alternatives for HFO exist, but despite new regulations, their use is still limited. To stimulate shipping companies to replace HFO by one of the alternatives, policymakers can use a variety of policy instruments. In this paper, we present a comprehensive system perspective of the maritime fuel system and agent-based model (MarPEM) that can be used to study the effects of policy instruments on the transition away from HFO. In contrast to existing studies on reducing maritime emissions, our system perspective captures the relations and dynamics between different components of the maritime fuel system. Thereby, it can account for the feedback and non-linear dynamics in the system. We illustrate the use of MarPEM to assess the effect of three policy instruments that each influence the maritime fuel system differently. The outcomes of the experiments are in line with previous studies and the opinion of industrial experts. The model is thus a valid representation of the maritime fuel system. By presenting a sufficiently detailed representation of the marine fuel socio-technical system, listing clear and detailed assumptions, and publishing the source code, future studies can use this work as basis to study the effects of other policy instruments. Thereby, this research enables future detailed studies of the maritime fuel system’s transition.

Patent Assertion Entities, companies that monetise patents but do not practice them, have been over the years negatively portrayed as harmful “patent trolls” that engage in speculative and abusive patent litigation against manufacturing companies, threatening them with injunctions in order to extract settlements unrelated to the value of their technology. Although mass PAE litigation has mainly been US phenomenon, recent study indicated that PAEs are on the rise in Europe and a number of changes the European patent and litigation system have been recommended, in particular the denial of injunctive relief in case of finding of infringement of a valid patent. This article provides a different perspective on PAEs. It will first show that it is incorrect to label all PAEs as “bad” actors. Generally, PAEs are in the business of patent licensing and serve a useful intermediary function in the market, facilitating licensing and technology transfer, while some may be engaging in aggressive monetisation practices. Whether there is abuse of litigation system would depend on the facts of the case, and not a priori whether plaintiff is PAE or not. Second, PAEs have mainly been US phenomenon and the incentives for abuse of European patent and litigation system are not present, or are not present to the same extent as in the US. A combination of factors, such as patent cases being decided by experienced judges, higher costs of patent enforcement, lower costs of defence, loser pays principle and generally higher quality of patents all disincentivise the emergence of opportunistic litigation practices. Finally, the available evidence shows that PAEs are actually responsible for very small number of patent litigation in the EU. The vast majority of litigation is between practicing entities and in majority of cases PAEs are actually defendants in invalidity suits initiated by practicing entities. The evidence therefore suggests that European patent and litigation system is functioning well and that the fear about massive PAE litigation abuses is unfounded. European judges should continue in applying the relevant legal framework for granting legal remedies for infringement of IP rights, which already gives them the tools to guard against litigation abuses by any type of entity.

The possibility to seek and obtain injunctions for the infringement of Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) is limited in both the US and the EU. The reasons for restricting the use of injunctions is due to concern of patent holdup, i.e. the possibility of SEP holder to force standard-implementers to accept onerous licensing terms, exceeding patent’s true economic value, as well as seeing injunctions as incompatible with the commitment given by the patent holder that it will license its SEPs on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. Limiting the use of injunctions by SEP holders may enable implementers to engage in a holdout, i.e. delaying taking a license for as long as possible, forcing the patentee to engage in expensive and protracted litigation in order to settle for below FRAND terms. Instead of focusing on injunctions, courts may use some procedural remedies in SEP disputes to restore the balance between the interests of patent holders and implementers. Courts could, at the beginning of the trial, order the defendant to make interim payments into escrow, or provide another type of security, reflecting the value of SEP holder’s whole portfolio, and not just for the patents in the litigation. Once interim payments are in place, courts may separate patent and FRAND issue and try patent issues first, as such could provide parties a sense of the overall strength of the SEP portfolio. Courts may adjust the level of interim payments, after patent issues have been resolved, by setting the higher amount if most of the patents have been confirmed valid and infringed or, conversely, lower the amount if most of the patents have been found to be invalid and non-infringed. Interim payments could therefore secure the interests of SEP holders and make holdout strategy more costly, while at the same time dispense the need for injunctions and mitigate the concern about holdup.

Radical innovations prompt significant subsequent technological development and exhibit novelty and "architectural" innovation, i.e. rearranging the way design elements are put together in a system. Thus, radical innovations often serve as the foundation for new technological systems, industries or domains and are seen to involve significant conceptual breakthroughs, through either luck or genius. The much more common incremental innovations are perceived as mere improvements to existing technologies. Decreasing returns from incremental innovation are understood to motivate a search for a new radical innovation to provide a platform for more incremental innovation. However, deeper study shows that the conceptual "distance" a radical breakthrough travels is far shorter than would initially appear. On closer inspection, several innovations with undoubtedly radical effects comprise several small inventive steps that appear self-evident, even logical, to the developers. This conundrum appears to stem from conflating a radical effect with a radical development. What's more, this view of radical innovation views inventions as isolated from the broader currents of technological development. An alternative view sees innovations as embedded in a co-evolutionary socio-technical landscape, where inventions develop in a technological environment and become building blocks for further inventions. Although only inventions adopted for use can be called innovations, "inactive" inventions can also serve as building blocks. In this view, (almost) all steps to innovation are incremental, but the system's self-organized criticality (SOC) allows spontaneous radical effects. This work explores the importance of an evolutionary and SOC view of invention and innovation through agent based models. We develop a simple model capable of simulating the build-out of technologies in a series of simulation experiments. Although all inventions develop incrementally, the model behaviour is expected to exhibit SOC so that some inventions trigger much higher rates of subsequent development than others. Thus, the results are expected to support an evolutionary view of technological development where a radical effect is a consequence of the entire interdependent landscape rather than of the radical development of a specific innovation. The model should be of interest to several research streams concerned with simulating and studying R&D activities.

Freedom of the Member State to set up their own tax systems and pursue different tax policies is strained by the Treaty provisions. Various tax measures may distort competition in the internal market and thus constitute State aid. This article explores the application of State aid rules to national tax provisions and establishes a link between the wide interpretations of selectivity criterion in the State aid definition on the one hand, and the Commission's aim to combat harmful tax competition between Member States on the other. In the wake of the ongoing financial crisis, national governments are forced not only to exercise expenditure cuts and fiscal discipline, but also to impose tax increases. However, the current interpretation of the Commission and the European Court of Justice enables almost any tax measure to fall into scope of State aid provisions, which leads to legal uncertainty and opening up the floodgates of the EU State aid supervision. The article submits that this tendency is due to aim to tackle harmful tax competition between the Member States. However, State aid provisions are not an adequate tool for such a task. Recent case law of the Court will be analyzed and it will be argued that different interpretation of the selectivity criterion will not solve the Court and the Commission's overly wide application of the State aid rules. Instead, especially after the Gibraltar case, the Court is telling us that the next step should be harmonization of direct taxation.

Energy infrastructures such as the electricity grid and natural gas networks are socio-technical systems, complex adaptive systems that exhibit emergence. Their structure, function and performance is the result of actor decisions, technology operation, interconnections and economic transactions. Policy making, regulation, and strategic management which address social and economic issues can be framed as the manipulation of some emergent phenomena. This paper offers a review and analysis of relevant literature on emergence manipulation and interprets work originating in computer science, social science and biological science to develop a 'system' understanding of this approach. We define the notion of 'emergence engineering' to cover emergence manipulation practices. Furthermore, we discuss how we can use this state-of-the-art to underpin and facilitate the management of emergence in socio-technical systems. The review reveals that 'emergence engineering' is mainly used for computing practices. The theories and tools provided therein are applied in biology and the social sciences. The major applicable definition of emergence appears to be the 'design, observation and surprise.' The relation between emergence engineering and self-organization and the effect of downward causation on such practices are also discussed. The review is concluded by a discussion on how current emergence engineering practices can be applied to the study of socio-technical systems.