Directions: The following paragraphs are given in a
wrong order. For Questions 41-45, you are required to reorganize these
paragraphs into a coherent text 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 intellectual property 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: