PREP- Essay17- Q55

yanziyi

The system of patent-granting, which confers temporary monopolies for the exploitation of new technologies, was originally established as an incentive to the pursuit of risky new ideas. Yet studies of the most patent-conscious business of all—the semiconductor industry—suggest that firms do not necessarily become more innovative as they increase their patenting activity. Ziedonis and Hall, for example, found that investment in research and development (a reasonable proxy for innovation) did not substantially increase between 1982 and 1992, the industry’s most feverish period of patenting. Instead, semiconductor firms simply squeezed more patents out of existing research and development expenditures. Moreover, Ziedonis and Hall found that as patenting activity at semiconductor firms increased in the 1980’s, the consensus among industry employees was that the average quality of their firms’ patents declined. Though patent quality is a difficult notion to measure, the number of times a patent is cited in the technical literature is a reasonable yardstick, and citations per semiconductor patent did decline during the 1980’s. This decline in quality may be related to changes in the way semiconductor firms managed their patenting process: rather than patenting to win exclusive rights to a valuable new technology, patents were filed more for strategic purposes, to be used as bargaining chips to ward off infringement suites or as a means to block competitors’ products.



Q
the passage suggests that the use of patents as bargaining chips to ward off infringement suits
A was rerely successful during the 1980s
B became increasingly infrequent in the 1980s
C does not fulfill the intended purpose of the patent-granting system
D is a consequence of the decline in patent quality
E is discussed increasingly in the semiconductor industry's technical literature


答案选C，可是我觉得完全不对啊
对应高亮部分，这个 bargaining chips to ward off infringement suits 不就是 patents were filed more for strategic purposes 之后陈述的内容吗？

我怎么感觉这道题没有正确选项？

谢谢大家帮忙~~

buffonjuventus

两个地方可以看出来选C，
1）文章最后一句（或者说你摘抄部分的最后一句）rather than patenting to win exclusive rights to a valuable new technology, patents were filed more for strategic purposes, to be used as bargaining chips to ward off infringement suites or as a means to block competitors’ products.从此句话可以看出来，rather than后面才是这个patent-granting system的真正用意。而往往却被用做strategy purpose。
2）文章开头The system of patent-granting, 。。。。。。。。, was originally established as an incentive to the pursuit of risky new ideas.
所以说C是正确的，因为这个专利系统本来的用意是鼓励创新的，结果很多时候被用作是as bargaining chips to ward off infringement suits，与本意不符（does not fulfill the intended purpose of the patent-granting system）。
我觉得选项完全没问题。