disenapati wrote:
The 1950 Graver Tank & Manufacturing Co. v. Linde Air Products Co. Supreme Court decision went a long way toward establishing the propriety of the doctrine of equivalents, which allows patent law to accommodate reason outside of its exact jurisdiction, and explaining how and when it was to be used.
A. toward establishing the propriety of the doctrine of equivalents, which allows patent law to accommodate reason outside of its exact jurisdiction, and explaining how and when it was
B. toward establishing the propriety of the doctrine of equivalents, which allow patent law to accommodate reason outside of its exact jurisdiction, and to explain how and when it was
C. towards the establishment of the propriety of the doctrine of equivalents, which allows patent law to accommodate reason outside of its exact jurisdiction, and explaining how and when it was
D. toward establishing the propriety of the doctrine of equivalents, which allows patent law to accommodate reason outside of its exact jurisdiction, and explained how and when they were
E. towards establishing the propriety of the doctrine of equivalents, allowing patent law to accommodate reason outside of its exact jurisdiction, and explaining how and when they were
My understanding of this question and the logic I followed:
1) toward and towards are both correct. The usage differs in practical applications in UK and US English but both are accepted. Don't eliminate ans choices based on this.
2) Understand the meaning of sentence first. The doctrine of equivalents allowed the patent law to accommodate reason outside its jurisdiction. Supreme court made a move towards establishing propriety of this doctrine. The 'which' is correctly modifying 'equivalents' in all options except in E where 'allowing' is modifying 'the propriety of doctine...'. Therefore, eliminate E.
3) Now focus on parallelism. Note that 'accommodate' is not expected to be parallel with 'explain' because of the comma before 'and'. Making it parallel changes the meaning of the sentence. It is expected that 'establishing' and 'explaining' should be parallel. So options B, C and D are out. Option A is left.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kudos if helpful!