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  3. The collaboration among scientists, universities and industry is not new. Both the university administration and the industry pl

The collaboration among scientists, universities and industry is not new. Both the university administration and the industry pl

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问题     The collaboration among scientists, universities and industry is not new. Both the university administration and the industry play a role in developing the scientific knowledge in the academic environment. The university is usually responsible for obtaining patents and for licensing the rights for its professors’ inventions. The company, having licensed the product, must provide the considerable financial backing required for its development and marketing.
    In the best of all possible worlds, the inventors, the university administrators and the company executives work as a well-oiled machine that creates a beneficial product and generates capital to support the academic lab, the scientist, the university and the company’s shareholders. In the real world, however, each of these component parts has its own agenda. The goal may not entirely overlap.
    When a university stands to gain financially from the commercialization of one of its professors’ inventions, for example, the professor may hesitate, out of conflict-of-interest issues, to participate in the trials of the new product. Such a policy causes friction and frustration in the relationship between the university administration and the faculty members.
    Universities themselves have faced the frustration of licensing their inventions to companies that have then sublicensed them to other firms for enormous fees. Because these "fees" can be disguised by a variety of accounting procedures, there is no way for the university or the inventor to participate in the profits of the sublicensing agreement. Thus, unless the invention becomes a product, the profits made by the company are not shared by the university or the inventor.
    Meanwhile it is the company who writes the checks. Of the three parties involved, it compromises the least. As a rule, the company shows more concern over new ideas and new products which can be used to benefit itself and the public good as well.
    So the scientist, the university and the industry find themselves on a three-way street where ideas from the academic laboratory move into the realm of application. Because the use of this highway has increased dramatically in recent years, traffic jams and collisions have been unavoidable. And, increasingly, basic research is diverted from its path. Inevitably, such sidetracking will slow the movement of basic science discoveries into technical products.
    Preventing this slowdown requires some new rules of the road. Increased government funding for research is necessary to restore order by redirecting lab efforts back toward basic research—the well spring of all applied technologies.
    The scientist and the university must cease regarding companies as money-providers with deep pockets and learn from the business world how economic realities are integrated into idealistic goals. And the company’s attitude that "the scientist has done the easy work" has to give way to adapting to a more inclusive approach that permits participation by the scientist and the university in deciding on the best road to development. Without these accommodations on all sides, the flow of idea into products will be slowed, and all parties, including society at large, will suffer from the gridlock.
Before the invention becomes a product, universities mostly worry that______.
选项 A、whether the product would be beneficial to themselves
B、they can’t share the profits if the invention is sublicensed to other firms
C、financial support required for its development can’t be found
D、there will be conflict-of-interest issues between them and the faculty
答案B
解析 根据第四段的“Universities themselves have faced the frustration of licensingtheir inventions to companies…or the inventor．”可知，大学本身也面临着窘境。他们将其发明授权给公司，而这些公司为了赚取高额回报，又将这些发明转让给其他公司。因为这些“转让费”可以用各种会计流程隐瞒，大学或发明者无法分享转授协议所带来的收益。在这种情况下，除非将发明变成产品，否则大学或发明者无法分得公司分享的收益。据此可知，在发明成为产品之前，大学最担心的是他们无法分享转授专利权协议所带来的收益。因此B项正确。
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