单选题 Do patents help or hinder innovation? Instinctively, they would seem a blessing. Patenting an idea gives its inventor a 20-year monopoly to exploit the fruit of his la- bor in the marketplace, in exchange for publishing a full account of how the new product, process or material works for everyone to see. For the inventor, that may be a reasonable trade-off. For society, however, the loss of competition through the granting sole rights to an individual or organization is justified only if it stimulates the economy and delivers goods that change people's lives for the better.
Invention, though, is not innovation. It may take a couple of enthusiasts working evenings and weekends for a year or two--not to mention tens of thousands of dollars of their savings--to get a pet idea to the patenting stage. But that is just the beginning. Innovations based on patented inventions or discoveries can take teams of researchers, engineers and marketing experts a decade or more, and tens of millions of dollars, to transfer to the marketplace. And for every bright idea that goes on to become a commercial winner, literally thousands fall by the wayside.
Most economists would argue that, without a patent system, even fewer inventions would lead to successful innovations, and those that did would be kept secret for far longer in order to maximize returns. But what if patents actually discourage the combining and recombining of inventions to yield new products and processes--as has happened in biotechnology, genetics and other disciplines?
Or what about those ridiculous business-process patents, like Amazon.com's "one-click" patent or the "nameyour-price" auction patent assigned to Priceline.com? Instead of stimulating innovation, such patents seem more about extracting "rents" from innocent bystanders going about their business. One thing has become clear since business-process patents took off in America during the 1990s: the quality of patents has deteriorated markedly. And with sloppier patenting standards, litigation has increased. The result is higher transaction costs all round.
It is not simply a failure of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to examine applications more rigorously. The Federal Circuit has been responsible for a number of bizarre rulings. Because of its diverse responsibilities, the Federal Circuit--unlike its counterparts in Europe and Japan--has never really acquired adequate expense in patent law.
To be eligible for a patent, an invention must not just be novel, but also useful and non-obvious. Anything that relies on natural phenomena, abstract ideas or the laws of nature does not qualify. The USPTO has taken to requiring a working prototype of anything that supposedly breaches the laws of physics. So, no more perpetualmotion machines, please.

单选题 What can we learn from the first paragraph?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】推理判断题。根据题干定位文章第1段。第1段结尾部分提到：只有(only if)当专利授予刺激了经济发展，生产出商品，从而改善了人们生活时，才可以被认为是福佑，故D项正确。A项“人们会自然地认为是专利刺激了创新”是对文章第1、2句话的故意曲解；B项是对原文第2句的曲解；C项welcome一词无法从文中推断出来，属过度推断。
单选题 The phrase "fall by the wayside" (Lines 5-6, Par
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】词语理解题。根据题于定位文章第2段。文中提到：每一个聪明的创意取得商业上的成功，就有数千个创意半途失败。由此可以推知fall by the wayside意为“失败，半途放弃”，故A项正确。B项“停止运作，出故障”；C项“下降，减少”；D项fall over“跌倒，被……绊倒”，不符合文意。
单选题 According to the author, the "one-click" patent and the "name-your-price" patent are
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】事实细节题。根据题干中的the“one—click”patent和the“name—your-一price”patent定位文章第4段。从第4段第1句话可以看出，作者认为诸如亚马逊网站的“一键点击”之类的专利都是ridiculous(荒谬的)，故C项absurd(荒谬的、不合理的)最符合题意。A项“滑稽的”；B项“令人震惊的”；D项“不合理的”均排除。
单选题 The author holds that business-process patents
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】观点态度题。根据关键词business—process patents定位文章第4段。文中提到：随着专利标准日渐下滑，相关诉讼事件日益增加，由此可见作者认为这类专利的标准不够，故D项最符合题意。A项“本应该更早引入商业程序专利”文中并未提及；B项“本应该有助于创新”属于过度推断，C项强干扰，文中确实提到：结果导致交易成本全面上涨，但这是由于诉讼过多而导致的，而不是商业程序专利本身导致的，所以排除。
单选题 According to the text, which of the following is eligible for a patent?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】推理判断题。根据eligible一词定位文章最后一段。其中提到：一项发明要想符合申请专利的条件，不但要有新意，还要有用，并且具有非显而易见性。任何依赖自然现象、抽象思维或者自然规律的东西都不合格。根据这点可以推断得出B项“太阳能驱动的汽车”最符合题意。A、C明显是作者认为的非合格专利之列；D项强干扰，但是“词汇记忆法”利用的是大脑的记忆能力，涉及自然规律，所以不选。