OG 10 178 请教！

鹤源

og_10_178
In countries in which new life-sustaining drugs cannot be patented, such drugs are sold at widely affordable prices; those same drugs, where patented, command premium prices because the patents shield patent-holding manufacturers from competitors. These facts show that future access to new life-sustaining drugs can be improved if the practice of granting patents on newly developed life-sustaining drugs were to be abolished everywhere.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

(A)    In countries in which life-sustaining drugs cannot be patented, their manufacture is nevertheless a profitable enterprise.
(B)    Countries that do not currently grant patents on life-sustaining drugs are, for the most part, countries with large populations.
(C)    In some countries specific processes for the manufacture of pharmaceutical drugs can be patented even in cases in which the drugs themselves cannot be patented.
(D)    harmaceutical companies can afford the research that goes into the development of new drugs only if patents allow them to earn high profits.
(E)    Countries that grant patents on life-sustaining drugs almost always ban their importation from countries that do not grant such patents.



这道题正确答案是D，可是D说如果没有patent的话，药厂无high profit来支撑new drugs的研发。这句话跟题目中的前提不冲突吗？前提已经说了：In countries in which new life-sustaining drugs cannot be patented, such drugs are sold at widely affordable prices。在无patent的companies，such drugs are widely affordable prices。说明无patent，人家也研发新产品了啊。
不明白，请教各位~

sdcar2010

LZ, you do not understand what a patent is about. No patent protection means either the product is not novel or the product needs no patent protection. No patent protection does not equal having R&D effort. In fact, if a product was the result of R&D effort (meaning it cost money to obtain), then having no patent protection would seriously reduce the new drugs' financial return since everyone else can make and market the new drug.

鹤源

LZ, you do not understand what a patent is about. No patent protection means either the product is not novel or the product needs no patent protection. No patent protection does not equal having R&D effort. In fact, if a product was the result of R&D effort (meaning it cost money to obtain), then having no patent protection would seriously reduce the new drugs' financial return since everyone else can make and market the new drug.

-- by 会员 sdcar2010 (2011/10/24 6:54:20)

new product needs patent to increase their profits and to support their R&D, so the price for the new product is high. But the sentence is saying "In countries in which new life-sustaining drugs cannot be patented, such drugs are sold at widely affordable prices".  Why?(既然没有patent，那么就没有新产品；那为什么别的国家就有新产品呢，而且人家国家不能被patent，卖了affordable的price，还是有新产品啊？我就是觉得这两句是矛盾的呢~)
I still cannot understand completely. I still think that the answer is contradict to the question itself.  Hope u can convince me!
Thanks a lot!

specta

这题不错，谢了。

原文：
A (premise): 无p (who the heck cares about what patent is and what it does)的地方，药便宜。有p的地方，同样的药贵。
B (conclusion): 如果大家都无p，则 future * ACCESS *  to NEW drugs can be improved

注意，他说的是accesss to new drugs，比光说“药价”已经往前跃了一步了(药价的确是影响accessibility的因素，but not the only one)。

选项D: 药厂就会搞不起新药了。换句话说，新药都没了，哪儿还谈得上access to them。

这题属于：A推不到B, 因为其他因素造成了反结果。