Theoretically, the patent office is only supposed to award patents for

Passage A is from a 2007 article on the United States patent system passage B is from a corporate statement.

Passage A

Theoretically, the patent office is only supposed to award patents for “nonobvious” inventions, and the concept of translating between an Internet address and a telephone number certainly seems obvious. Still, a court recently held that a technology company had infringed on patents covering computer servers that perform these translations.

In an ideal world, patents would be narrow enough that companies could “invent around” others’ patents if licensing agreements cannot be reached. Unfortunately, the patent system has departed from this ideal. In recent decades, the courts have dramatically lowered the bar for obviousness. As a result, some patents being granted are so broad that inventing around them is practically impossible.

Large technology companies have responded to this proliferation of bad patents with the patent equivalent of nuclear stockpiling. By obtaining hundreds or even thousands of patents, a company can develop a credible deterrent against patent lawsuits: if someone sues it for patent infringement, it can find a patent the other company has infringed and countersue. Often, however, a fundamental mistake is made: not joining this arms race. As a result, a company can find itself defenseless against lawsuits.

Software patents are particularly ripe for abuse because software is assembled from modular components. If the patent system allows those components to be patented, it becomes almost impossible to develop a software product without infringing numerous patents. Moreover, because of the complexity of software, it is often prohibitively expensive to even find all the patents a given software product might in principle be infringing. So even a software maker that wanted to find and license all of the patents relevant to its products is unlikely to be able to do so.

Passage B

Software makers like ours have consistently taken the position that patents generally impede innovation in software development and are inconsistent with open source/free software. We will continue to work to promote this position and are pleased to join our colleagues in the open-source/free software community, as well as those proprietary vendors who have publicly stated their opposition to software patents.

At the same time, we are forced to live in the world as it is, and that world currently permits software patents. A small number of very large companies have amassed large numbers of software patents. We believe such massive software patent portfolios are ripe for misuse because of the questionable nature of many software patents generally and because of the high cost of patent litigation.

One defense against such misuse is to develop a corresponding portfolio of software patents for defensive purposes. Many software makers, both open-source and proprietary, pursue this strategy. In the interests of our company and in an attempt to protect and promote the open-source community, we have elected to adopt this same stance. We do so reluctantly because of the perceived inconsistency with our stance against software patents; however, prudence dictates this position.

1. Which one of the following pairs would be most appropriate as titles for passage A and passage B, respectively?

(A) “The Use and Abuse of Patents” “The Necessary Elimination of Software Patents”
(B) “Reforming Patent Laws” “In Defense of Software Patents”
(C) “Patenting the Obvious” “Patents: A Defensive Policy”
(D) “A Misunderstanding of Patent Policies” “Keeping Software Free but Safe”
(E) “Developing a Credible Deterrent Against Patent Lawsuits” “An Apology to Our Customers”


2. Which one of the following is mentioned in passage A but not in passage B?

(A) the amassing of patents by software companies
(B) the cost of finding all the patents a product may infringe
(C) the negative effect of patents on software development
(D) the high cost of patent litigation in general
(E) the dubious nature of many software patents


3. Which one of the following comes closest to capturing the meaning of the phrase “invent around” (Highlighted)?

(A) invent a product whose use is so obvious that no one can have a patent on it
(B) conceal the fact that a product infringes a patent
(C) implement a previously patented idea in a way other than that intended by the patent holder
(D) develop new products based on principles that are entirely different from those for products affected by competitors’ patents
(E) devise something that serves the same function as the patented invention without violating the patent


4. Which one of the following most accurately describes the relationship between the two passages?

(A) Passage A objectively reports a set of events; passage B subjectively takes issue with aspects of the reported events.
(B) Passage A discusses a problem in an industry; passage B states the position of a party dealing with that problem.
(C) Passage A is highly critical of a defensive strategy used by an industry; passage B is a clarification of that strategy.
(D) Passage A describes an impasse within an industry; passage B suggests a way out of this impasse.
(E) Passage A lays out both sides of a dispute; passage B focuses on one of those sides.


5. The authors of the passages would be most likely to agree that software companies would be well advised to

(A) amass their own portfolios of software patents
(B) attempt to license software patented by other companies
(C) exploit patents already owned by competitors
(D) refrain from infringing on any patents held by other companies
(E) research the patents relevant to their products more thoroughly


6. Which one of the following, if true, would cast doubt on the position concerning innovation in software development taken in the first paragraph of passage B?

(A) Most patents for software innovations have a duration of only 20 years or less
(B) Software companies that do not patent software generally offer products that are more reliable than those that do.
(C) Some proprietary vendors oppose software patents for self-interested reasons.
(D) Software innovation would be less profitable if software could not be patented.
(E) The main beneficiaries of software innovations are large corporations rather than individual innovators.