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  3. Patents Human beings are competitive creatures. The evolutionary drive towards survival of the fittest has made us that way,

Patents Human beings are competitive creatures. The evolutionary drive towards survival of the fittest has made us that way,

admin2010-10-14  20
问题                             Patents
    Human beings are competitive creatures. The evolutionary drive towards survival of the fittest has made us that way, and contemporary man has carried the competitive urge to its highest form. We see it in all aspects of human activity, from the conflicts of two-year olds over possession of a toy through all the physical and intellectual competitions of school years to the ultimate struggles between races and nations for power and possessions. We learned early, however, that the forces of competition must be balanced with an equal measure of cooperation if all of us are not to be destroyed by the process. Organized society resulted, and successful societies have been those that have achieved the most effective balance of competition and cooperation.
    Patent systems are among the most straightforward examples of such a successful, cooperative arrangement and show society operating at its best. Patent systems reward the competitive, creative drive with a temporary, limited, exclusive right, in return for the cooperation of an inventor in teaching the rest of society how to use his or her findings for all time thereafter. This philosophy must be kept in mind if one is to use and to understand patents effectively.
    Early Patent Systems
    Patent systems more or less as we know have been used as a social tool since the Renaissance. Rulers of the Italian city states recognized that their creative subjects needed encouragement and protection a gainst copying by their competitive fellows. Patents were granted for various terms, the most famous being a 20-year patent granted to Galileo on a mechanism for raising irrigation water to fields. European and English monarchs granted patents to encourage commerce and, unfortunately, to reward favorites of the court.
    The US Patent System
    The American colonies made a practice of granting patents to their inventors, and the United States Constitution provided the basis for our patent and copyright laws in Article 1, section 8:
    The Congress shall have the power.., to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.
    This constitutional directive was given life by the Patent Act of 1790. The first US patent, signed by George Washington ,Randolph, and Jefferson, was in fact on a chemical subject. The inventor was Samuel Hopkins of Philadelphia, and his contribution to society was an improved method of making potash from wood ashes for use in soap making.
    The distinguished committee made a diligent effort to meet their duty to examine all applications for patentable merit, but within three years it became clear that they simply could not give adequate study to every application being claimed. In 1793 a "registration" system was adopted by the United States, meaning that patents were issued on every application that met formal requirements and that the burden of sorting out priority of rights among those holding conflicting patents was thrown into the courts.
    Perhaps it is a blessing that all the record from this period of disorders were destroyed by a fire in the Patent Office in 1836. The Congress then passed the Patent Act of 1836, which created the Commissioner of patents and a Patent Office to examine applications to determine whether a truly new invention had been made. Present US patents are numbered from the adoption of this law, and the series reached No. 4 000 000 on December 28,1976.
    In 1887 the United States joined with many other countries in the Paris Convention. The present pa tent law of the United States is the Patent Act of 1952, the most important new feature being a workable definition of what constitutes invention. A movement to rewrite US patent law is in progress at this writing.
    Nature and Purpose of Patent Systems
    Regardless of the diversity in detailed practice of the many patent systems of the world, they all share the same fundamental goal. That goal is to provide a reward to each inventor to disclose his or her findings for the long-term benefit of society rather than to attempt to profit from the invention in secret. The incentive is a short-term right(5 to 20 years, depending on the country)to prevent(" exclude" is the technical term)others from using the invention.
    If the inventor fulfills his or her part of the agreement, a patent will be granted if the invention has the three basic elements of patentability, which are:
(1)It is truly new. "Novelty" is the technical term.
(2)It is not obvious in the light of what was known before. "Inventive" and "prior art" are the technical terms.
(3)It must be useful.
    The law of each country has its own way of applying these requirements--i.e. , through administrative or judicial procedures, but the three basic elements are common to all patent systems.
    If these three conditions are met, a patent may be granted. Note especially the term granted. A patent is a grant from a government in return for the disclosure by an inventor of how to practical the invention. A bargain is made between the parties. An inventor does not have a right to a patent unless he or she has fulfilled his or her part of the bargain, and it is not uncommon for patents to be struck down by the courts when it is found that the inventor failed to provide adequate instructions for practicing the invention. The technical term is an "enabling" disclosure.
    While the word "patent" is commonly used as a noun to refer to the grant held by an inventor, the legal document is actually known as "Letter Patent", meaning a written instrument(letter)open to the public, in contrast to "Letter Close", i. e. , secret or sealed orders. The official copy of a US Letters Pa tent is an impressive, colorfully ribboned and sealed legal document.
    The preeminent consideration of patent system is the public interest. Court decision usually depends on the questions of whether the patentee really made a new and useful contribution to knowledge and, whether an open and complete disclosure has been made of the new findings. The function of the US Pa tent and Trademark Office in examining a patent application is twofold:(1)to keep known or obvious technology from being unfairly seized upon by an applicant who has not really made an inventive contribution, and(2)to encourage disclosure of inventions as a stimulus to the continuing development of technology.
Patent systems as we know have been used as a social tool since the Renaissance.
选项 A、Y
B、N
C、NG
答案A
解析 本句的关键词是“a social tool”。据此我们在第三段找到“Patent systems more or less as we know have been used as a social tool since the Renaissance．”故判断为YES。
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