单选题 2分

Text 2 Over the past decade, thousands of patents have been granted for what are called business met...

Text 2
Over the past decade, thousands of patents have been granted for what are called business methods.Amazon.com received one for its "one-click" online payment system.Merrill Lynch got legal protection for an asset allocation strategy.One inventor patented a technique for lifting a box.
Now the nation's top patent court appears completely ready to scale back on business-method patents, which have been controversial ever since they were first authorized 10 years ago.In a move that has intellectual-property lawyers abuzz the U.S.court of Appeals for the federal circuit said it would use a particular case to conduct a broad review of business-method patents.In re Bilski, as the case is known , is "a very big deal", says DennisD.Crouch of the University of Missouri School of law.It "has the potential to eliminate an entire class of patents."
Curbs on business-method claims would be a dramatic about-face, because it was the federal circuit itself that introduced such patents with its 1998 decision in the so-called state Street Bank case, approving a patent on a way of pooling mutual-fund assets.That ruling produced an explosion in business-method patent filings, initially by emerging internet companies trying to stake out exclusive rights to specific types of online transactions.Later, more established companies raced to add such patents to their files, if only as a defensive move against rivals that might beat them to the punch.In 2005, IBM noted in a court filing that it had been issued more than 300 business-method patents despite the fact that it questioned the legal basis for granting them.Similarly, some Wall Street investment films armed themselves with patents for financial products, even as they took positions in court cases opposing the practice.
The Bilski case involves a claimed patent on a method for hedging risk in the energy market.The Federal circuit issued an unusual order stating that the case would be heard by all 12 of the court's judges, rather than a typical panel of three, and that one issue it wants to evaluate is whether it should "reconsider" its state street Bank ruling.
The Federal Circuit's action comes in the wake of a series of recent decisions by the supreme Court that has narrowed the scope of protections for patent holders.Last April, for example the justices signaled that too many patents were being upheld for "inventions" that are obvious.The judges on the Federal circuit are "reacting to the anti-patent trend at the Supreme Court", says HaroldC.Wegner, a patent attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.
27. Which of the following is true of the Bilski case?
  • A.Its ruling complies with the court decisions
  • B.It involves a very big business transaction
  • C.It has been dismissed by the Federal Circuit
  • D.It may change the legal practices in the U.S.

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1 单选题 0.5分
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1选?
  • A.affected
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2 单选题 0.5分
In 1924 America's National Research Council sent two engineers to supervise a series of industrial experiments at a large telephone-parts factory called the Hawthorne Plant near Chicago.It hoped they would learn how stop-floor lighting 1 workers' productivity.Instead, the studies ended 2 giving their name to the "Hawthorne effect", the extremely influential idea that the very 3 to being experimented upon changed subjects' behavior.
The idea arose because of the 4 behavior of the women in the Hawthorne plant.According to 5 of the experiments, their hourly output rose when lighting was increased, but also when it was dimmed.It did not 6 what was done in the experiment; 7 something was changed, productivity rose.A(n) 8 that they were being experimented upon seemed to be 9 to alter workers' behavior 10 itself.
After several decades, the same data were 11 to econometric the analysis.Hawthorne experiments has another surprise store 12the descriptions on record, no systematic 13 was found that levels of productivity were related to changes in lighting.
It turns out that peculiar way of conducting the experiments may be have let to 14 interpretation of what happed.15, lighting was always changed on a Sunday.When work started again on Monday, output 16 rose compared with the previous Saturday and 17 to rise for the next couple of days.18, a comparison with data for weeks when there was no experimentation showed that output always went up on Monday, workers 19 to be diligent for the first few days of the week in any case, before 20 a plateau and then slackening off.This suggests that the alleged "Hawthorne effect" is hard to pin down.
2选?
  • A.at
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3 单选题 0.5分
In 1924 America's National Research Council sent two engineers to supervise a series of industrial experiments at a large telephone-parts factory called the Hawthorne Plant near Chicago.It hoped they would learn how stop-floor lighting 1 workers' productivity.Instead, the studies ended 2 giving their name to the "Hawthorne effect", the extremely influential idea that the very 3 to being experimented upon changed subjects' behavior.
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4 单选题 0.5分
In 1924 America's National Research Council sent two engineers to supervise a series of industrial experiments at a large telephone-parts factory called the Hawthorne Plant near Chicago.It hoped they would learn how stop-floor lighting 1 workers' productivity.Instead, the studies ended 2 giving their name to the "Hawthorne effect", the extremely influential idea that the very 3 to being experimented upon changed subjects' behavior.
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It turns out that peculiar way of conducting the experiments may be have let to 14 interpretation of what happed.15, lighting was always changed on a Sunday.When work started again on Monday, output 16 rose compared with the previous Saturday and 17 to rise for the next couple of days.18, a comparison with data for weeks when there was no experimentation showed that output always went up on Monday, workers 19 to be diligent for the first few days of the week in any case, before 20 a plateau and then slackening off.This suggests that the alleged "Hawthorne effect" is hard to pin down.
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