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  3. When an invention is made, the inventor has three possible courses of action open to him; he can give the invention to the world

When an invention is made, the inventor has three possible courses of action open to him; he can give the invention to the world

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问题     When an invention is made, the inventor has three possible courses of action open to him; he can give the invention to the world by publishing it, keep the idea secret, or patent it. (46) Secrecy obviously evaporates once the invention is sold or used, and there is always the risk that in the meantime another inventor, working quite independently, will make and patent the same discovery. (47) A granted patent is the result of a bargain struck between an inventor and the state, by means of which inventor gets a limited period of monopoly and publishes full details of his invention to the public after that period terminates.
    Once the monopoly period comes to an end, all those details of the invention pass into the public domain. Only in the most exceptional circumstances is the life-span of a patent extended to alter this normal process of events. (48) The longest extension ever granted was to Georges Valensi; his 1939 patent for color TV receiver circuitry was extended until 1971 because for most of the patent’s normal life there was no color TV to receive and thus no hope of reward for the invention. But even short extensions are normally extremely rare.
    Because a patent remains permanently public after it has terminated, the shelves of the library attached to the patent office contain details of literally millions of ideas that are free for anyone to use and, if older than half a century, sometimes even re-patent. Indeed, patent experts often advise anyone wishing to avoid the high cost of conducing a search through live patents that the one sure way of avoiding violation of any other inventor’s right is to steal and use a dead patent. (49) Likewise, because publication of an idea in any other form permanently invalidates further patents on the idea, it is traditionally safe to take ideas from other areas of print. Much modern technological advance is based on these presumptions of legal security.
    (50)Anyone closely involved in patents and inventions soon learns that most "new" ideas are, in fact, as old as the availability of new technology. The basic patent for the theory of magnetic recording dates back to 1886. Many of the original ideas behind television originate from the late 19th and early 20th century. Even the Volkswagen rear engine car was anticipated by a 1904 patent for a cart with the horse at the rear.
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答案任何与专利和发明有密切联系的人很快就会认识到，大多数“新”想法实际上和新技术的应用几乎同时出现。
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