Directions: The following paragraphs are given in a wrong order.
For Questions 41--45, you are required to reorganize these paragraphs into a
coherent article by choosing from the list A--G to fill in each numbered box.
The first and the last paragraphs have been placed for you in Boxes. Mark your
answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.
[A] Yet thieves still reap a rich harvest. Inadequate
protection of U. S. patents, trademarks and copyrights costs the U. S.
economy $ 80 billion in sales lost to pirates and 250,000 jobs every year,
according to Gary Hoffman, an intellectualproperty attorney at Dickstein,
Shapiro & Morin in Washington. The computer industry loses upwards of $4 billion
of revenues a year to illegal copying of software programs. Piracy of movies,
books and recordings costs the entertainment business at least $4 billion
annually. [B] With intellectual property now accounting for more
than 25% of U. S. exports (compared with just 12% eight years ago), protection
against international piracy ranks high on the Bush Administration’s trade
agenda. The U. S. International Trade Commission, the federal agency that
deals with unfair-trade complaints by American companies, is handling a record
number of cases (38 last year). Says ITC Chairman Anne Brunsdale: "Conceptual
property has replaced produce and heavy machinery as the hotbed of trade
disputes." [C] The battle is widening--U. S. companies filed
more than 5,700 intellectual-property lawsuits last year in contrast to 3,800 in
1980--and the stakes can be enormous. In the biggest patent-infringement case to
date, Eastman Kodak was ordered last October to pay $900 million for infringing
on seven Polaroid instant-photography patents. In a far-reaching copyright case,
book publishers scored an important victory in March when a federal court in New
York City fined the Kinko’s Graphics national chain of copying stores $510,000
for illegally photocopying and selling excerpts of books to college
students. [D] Although the verdict is subject to appeal, the
award underscores the growing importance of protecting intellectual property.
That phrase may seem entirely too grand to apply to a song like If You Don’t
Want My Peaches, You’d Better Stop Shaking My Tree, but it actually encompasses
the whole vast range of creative ideas that turn out to have value --and many of
them have more value than ever. From Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse to Upjohn’s
formula for its anti-baldness potion, patents, trademarks and copyrights have
become corporate treasures that their owners will do almost anything to
protect. [E] In an economy increasingly based on information
and technology, ideas and creativity often embody most of a company’s wealth.
That is why innovations are being patented, trademarked and copyrighted in
record numbers. It is also why today’s clever thief doesn’t rob banks, many of
which are broke anyway; he makes unauthorized copies of Kevin Costner’s
latest film, sells fake Cartier watches and steals the formula for Merck’s
newest pharmaceutical. That’s where the money is. [F] One reason
is that any countries offer only feeble protection to intellectual property.
Realizing that such laxness will exclude them from much world trade as Well as
hobble native industries, nations everywhere are revising laws covering patents,
copyrights and trade names. Malaysia, Egypt, China, turkey, Brazil and even the
Soviet Union have all recently announced plans either to enact new laws or beef
up existing safeguards. In an effort to win U. S. congressional support for a
proposed free-trade pact, Mexico last month revealed, plans to double the life
of trademark licenses to 10 years and extend patent protection for the first
time to such products as pharmaceuticals and food. [G] Companies
are cracking down on pirates who steal designs, movies and computer programs.
The battle is getting hotter--and more important. When Johnson &. Johnson
introduced a new fiber-glass casting tape for broken bones several years ago,
executives at Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing flew into a rage. The tape, which
sets fractures faster than plaster, was remarkably similar in design and
function to a casting tape developed by 3M scientists. The St. Paul-based
company quickly sued, charging J & J with violating four of its patents. Last
month a federal court backed 3M and ordered J & J to pay $116 million in damages
and interest--the fourth largest patent-infringement judgment in history.
Order: