首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Patents and Inventions When an invention is made, the inventor has three possible courses of action open to him: first, he c
Patents and Inventions When an invention is made, the inventor has three possible courses of action open to him: first, he c
admin
2012-01-14
100
问题
Patents and Inventions
When an invention is made, the inventor has three possible courses of action open to him: first, he can give the invention to the world by publishing it; keep the idea secret or patent it. 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. A granted patent is the result of a bargain struck between an inventor and the state, whereby, in return for a limited period of monopoly (16 years in the UK), the inventor publishes full details of his invention to the public. Once the monopoly period expires, all those details of the invention pass into the public domain.
(A) [■] Only in the most exceptional circumstances is the life-span of a patent extended to alter this normal process of events.
(B) [■] The longest extension ever granted was to Georges Valensi: his 1939 patent for color TV receiver circuitry was extended until 1971,
(C) [■] 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.
(D) [■] George Valensi was more fortunate than most of other inventors. Because a patent remains
perpetually
published after it has expired, the shelves of the library attached to the British 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 conducting a search through live patents, that the one sure way of avoiding infringement of any other inventor’s rights is to
plagiarize
a dead patent.
Likewise; because publication of an idea in any other form permanently invalidates future patents on that idea, it is traditionally safe to cull ideas from other areas Of print.
Much modern technological advance is based on these presumptions of legal security. Anyone closely involved in patents and inventions soon learns that most "new" ideas are, in fact, as old as the hills. It is their reduction to commercial practice, either through necessity, dedication or the availability of new technology, that makes news and money. The basic patents for the manufacture of margarine and the theory of magnetic recording date back to 1869 and 1886 respectively. Many of the original ideas behind television stem from the late 19th and early 20th century, well before Baird aroused public interest. Every stereo gramophone sold today owes its existence to the theory patented by Blumlein in 1931, and even the Volkswagen rear engine car was anticipated by a 1904 patent for a cart with the horse at the rear. Such anticipations can have surprising significance. The German chemical giant, BASF, was recently refused a patent for the clever idea of pumping expanded plastics into a submerged ship and thereby floating it to the surface. The
grounds
of the refusal were that the German Examiner had once seen a Walt Disney cartoon in which Donald Duck had performed a similar trick on a sunken boat with table-tennis balls. If the BASF scheme proves successful in practice and enables valuable wrecks to be salvaged it is likely that Walt Disney will be credited as the inventor. Even the apparently safe history of the telephone and gramophone contains some surprises. US legal case law details how an American called Drawbaugh had ideas for a telephone which anticipated Bell’s patents of 1875—1876 by five years, but it was Alexander Graham Bell who made the system practical on a commercial level and was acknowledged and rewarded as inventor. The future will produce many similar situations. Patents are daily being granted for ideas from inventors for schemes that cannot yet work—but that one day, following massive investment by industry, will become a reality. It is remarkably easy to sit in the comfort of an armchair and patent pipe dreams which are nothing more than prophecies of the future and problems for others to solve.
The word perpetually in Paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to______.
选项
A、continually
B、permanently
C、privately
D、publicly
答案
B
解析
本题是词汇题,主要考查考生能否根据上下文正确地理解perpetually一词。根据第三段中的内容,某专利过期后,该专利可供免费使用。根据上下文,perpetually的意思是“永久,永远”,只有选项B(永久地,不变地)最贴切,选项A(持续地,频繁地)、C(私下地,秘密地)和D(公然地,公开地)都不合适。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/iLyO777K
0
托福(TOEFL)
相关试题推荐
Completetheflowchartbelow.ChooseNOMORETHANTHREEWORDSfromthepassageforeachanswer.Writeyouranswersinboxes23-
Completetheflowchartbelow.ChooseNOMORETHANTHREEWORDSfromthepassageforeachanswer.Writeyouranswersinboxes23-
ChooseTWOletters,A-F.Writethecorrectlettersinboxes25and26onyouranswersheet.WhichTWOofthefollowingstatement
DothefollowingstatementsagreewiththeinformationgiveninReadingPassage1?Inboxes10-13onyouranswersheet,writeTR
LivingDunesWhenyouthinkofasanddune,youprobablypictureabarrenpileoflifelesssand.Butsanddunesareactuallydyn
CompanyInnovationA.InashabbyofficeindowntownManhattan,agroupof30AI(artificialintelligence)programmersfrom
Gestures—especially______ones.Students______outwordsandothersguessthem.
Studentsoncourseslastingoverayearareusuallygivenuntil______toleavethecountry.
learning/studygroups
A、Returnhisliteraturebookstothebookstore.B、Keephisbooksfromtheliteratureclass.C、Sellhisliteraturebookstothew
随机试题
输气站用于控制和调节天然气压力和流量的设备有()。
TheOriginoftheSong"HappyBirthdaytoYou"Ifthereisonesongthatweallknowithastobetheclassic"HappyBirthday
组成中含有六一散药物的方剂是
在胆管系统疾病中,最容易发生休克的是
法院应当裁定不予受理或裁定驳回起诉的是()
股权转让项目和TOT项目的技术管理方案只包括()
监理工程师应在发出中标通知书之后28天内,向承包人免费提供施工图纸、技术规范和其他技术资料2份,并向承包人进行技术交底。( )
简述什么样的学校教育和什么样条件下的学校教育才能对人的发展起主导作用。
已知一个数列从第0项开始的前三项分别为0,0,1,以后的各项都是其相邻的前三项之和。给定程序MODII.C中函数fun的功能是:计算并输出该数列前n项的平方根之和,n的值通过形参传入。例如,当n=10时,程序的输出结果应为:23.197745。
AStudyofSoundBHighwayPoliceCWorkingPrinciplesDEarlyUseof"Radar"EUsefulToolsFDiscoverybyChanceAdetec
最新回复
(
0
)