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
考研
Do patents help or hinder innovation? Instinctively, they would seem a blessing. Patenting an idea gives its inventor a 20-year
Do patents help or hinder innovation? Instinctively, they would seem a blessing. Patenting an idea gives its inventor a 20-year
admin
2019-09-30
110
问题
Do patents help or hinder innovation? Instinctively, they would seem a blessing. Patenting an idea gives its inventor a 20-year monopoly to exploit the fruit of his labor in the marketplace, in exchange for publishing a full account of how the new product, process or material works for everyone to see. For the inventor, that may be a reasonable trade-off. For society, however, the loss of competition through the granting sole rights to an individual or organization is justified only if it stimulates the economy and delivers goods that change people’s lives for the better.
Invention, though, is not innovation. It may take a couple of enthusiasts working evenings and weekends for a year or two—not to mention tens of thousands of dollars of their savings—to get a pet idea to the patenting stage. But that is just the beginning. Innovations based on patented inventions or discoveries can take teams of researchers, engineers and marketing experts a decade or more, and tens of millions of dollars, to transfer to the marketplace. And for every bright idea that goes on to become a commercial winner, literally thousands
fall by the wayside
.
Most economists would argue that, without a patent system, even fewer inventions would lead to successful innovations, and those that did would be kept secret for far longer in order to maximize returns. But what if patents actually discourage the combining and recombining of inventions to yield new products and processes—as has happened in biotechnology, genetics and other disciplines?
Or what about those ridiculous business-process patents, like Amazon.com’s "one-click" patent or the "name-your-price" auction patent assigned to Priceline.com? Instead of stimulating innovation, such patents seem more about extracting "rents" from innocent bystanders going about their business. One thing has become clear since business-process patents took off in America during the 1990s: the quality of patents has deteriorated markedly. And with sloppier patenting standards, litigation has increased. The result is higher transaction costs all round.
It is not simply a failure of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to examine applications more rigorously. The Federal Circuit has been responsible for a number of bizarre rulings. Because of its diverse responsibilities, the Federal Circuit—unlike its counterparts in Europe and Japan— has never really acquired adequate expertise in patent law.
To be eligible for a patent, an invention must not just be novel, but also useful and non-obvious. Anything that relies on natural phenomena, abstract ideas or the laws of nature does not qualify. The USPTO has taken to requiring a working prototype of anything that supposedly breaches the laws of physics. So, no more perpetual-motion machines, please.
The phrase "fall by the wayside" (Para. 2) most probably means _____.
选项
A、give up
B、break down
C、drop off
D、fall over
答案
A
解析
语义理解题。第二段第四句表明,将创新推向市场需花费大量的人力物力,接着第五句And表明另一种并列情况:每一个聪明的创意取得商业上的成功,就有数千个创意fall by the wayside。由此可以推知该短语的意思应与goes on to become a commercial winner相反,即“失败,半途放弃”,故A项正确。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/ole4777K
0
考研英语二
相关试题推荐
Polarexplorershavetobeextremely______toenduretheabominableclimateandotherhardships.
ThemajordifferencebetweennarrativesalesandsuggestivesalesisthatAccordingtoAlan,creativityinsalespeople______.
Accordingtothepassage,thefactthatyoungpeopleseemtobelosinginterestinscience______.Theword"disparity"(Paragr
Overthepastdecade,manycompanieshadperfectedtheartofcreatingautomaticbehaviors-habits-amongconsumers.Thesehabits
Workingatnonstandardtimes—evenings,nights,orweekends—istakingitstollonAmericanfamilies.One-fifthofallemployedAm
Whateverhappenedtothedeathofnewspaper?Ayearagotheendseemednear.Therecessionthreatenedtoremovetheadvertising
In2010,afederaljudgeshookAmerica’sbiotechindustrytoitscore.CompanieshadwonpatentsforisolatedDNAfordecades--b
OlympicGamesareheldeveryfouryearsatadifferentsite,inwhichathletes【1】differentnationscompeteagainsteachotherin
Everyone,itseems,hasahealthproblem.AfterpouringbillionsintotheNationalHealthService,Britishpeoplemoanaboutdir
BritishphysicistDr.JessWadehaswritten270Wikipediapagesfortrailblazingfemalescientistsinanefforttogeteverywom
随机试题
下列除哪项外,均可疏肝理气
A、上牙槽后神经+腭前神经B、下牙槽神经+颊长神+舌神经C、上牙槽前神经+鼻腭神经D、下牙槽神经+舌神经E、上牙槽中神经十上牙槽后神经+腭前神经拔除下列牙时,应麻醉哪组神经上颌第一磨牙
羚羊角的服用方法有
竣工验收报告的内容主要包括()。
进行挡土墙设计时,下列各项中()项不是计算土压力的必要参数。
属于职工薪酬范围的有()。Ⅰ.企业以自己的产品发放给职工作为福利Ⅱ.企业租赁房屋供职工无偿居住Ⅲ.个人储蓄性养老保险Ⅳ.因解除与职工的劳动关系给予的补偿
A、5B、7C、12D、15A四周四个数字之和除以4等于中间数字。(5+6+0+9)÷4=5。
货币局制(中央财大2010真题;中南财经政法大学2012真题)
在考生文件夹下,打开文挡WORD1.DOCX,按照要求完成下列操作并以该文件名(WORD1.DOCX)保存文档。【文档开始】信息与计算机在进入新世纪的时候,让我们回过头米看一看,什么是20世纪最重要的技术成果?人们可以列举出许
A、 B、 C、 A(A)针对正在读的这本小说很有意思的陈述,询问对方小说的题目,前后文衔接得自然顺畅。(B)reading和leader的发音相似,需多加注意。(C)reading和lead的发音相似,注意不要搞混。
最新回复
(
0
)