The system of patent-granting, which confers temporary

Question

Complete passage is discussed at the below mentioned link
the-system-of-patentgranting-which-confers-temporary-64279.html

The system of patent-granting, which confers temporary monopolies for the exploitation of new technologies, was originally established as an incentive to the pursuit of risky new ideas. Yet studies of the most patent-conscious business of all—the semiconductor industry—suggest that firms do not ecessarily become more innovative as they increase their patenting activity. Ziedonis and Hall, for example, found that investment in research and development (a reasonable proxy for innovation) did not substantially increase between 1982 and 1992, the industry’s most feverish period of patenting. Instead, semiconductor
firms simply squeezed more patents out of existing research and development expenditures. Moreover, Ziedonis and Hall found that as patenting activity at semiconductor firms increased in the 1980’s, the consensus among industry employees was that the
average quality of their firms’ patents declined. Though patent quality is a difficult notion to measure, he number of times a patent is cited in the technical literature is a reasonable yardstick, and citations per semiconductor patent did decline during the 1980’s. This decline in quality may be related to changes in the way semiconductor firms managed their patenting
process: rather than patenting to win exclusive rights to a valuable new technology, patents were filed more for strategic purposes, to be used as bargaining chips to ward off infringement suits or as a means to block competitors’ products.

The passage suggests that the use of patents as bargaining chips to ward off infringement suits
a. was rarely successfully during the 1980s
b. became increasingly infrequent during the 1980s
c. does not fulfill the intended purpose of the patent-granting system
d. is a consequence of the decline in patent quality
e. is discussed increasingly in the semiconductor industry's technical literature

Does anyone know why this answer is C? I thought it was D. Appreciate your help. My test is this week.

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Carcass · Answer

I do not see a particular difficulty in such question

Instead to do X (the patents) do Y

As such, patents do not fullfill the original scope

C is the answer

adrianaw · Answer

Can you please explain why the answer is not D?

This decline in quality may be related to changes in the way semiconductor firms managed their patenting
process:  rather than patenting to win exclusive rights to a valuable new technology, patents were filed more for strategic purposes, to be used as bargaining chips to ward off infringement suits or as a means to block competitors’ products.

I would have thought the part in red was implying what D is saying. Isn't C too much of a stretch? I don't know if patenting to win exclusive rights we can assume to mean patents do not fullfill the original scope.

umeshpatil · Answer

" The system of patent-granting, which confers temporary monopolies for the exploitation of new technologies, was originally established as an incentive to the pursuit of risky new ideas. "
The first line of passage tells the purpose of patent granting as the incentives to pursue new ideas and used as exploitation of new technology. It is the intended purpose of patent granting system. End of passage says that this purpose is not fulfilled. but rather patents were used to block competitors' product. So, Answer C is more correct.

Why D is not an answer ? 
 (decline in patent quality)==> (patents as used to ward off infringement suits) ==> intended purpose not fulfilled.

So, option C is more generic one.
If patent quality was not decreased, would it have been used to block competitor's product? We are not sure, its unique reason, but, we are only sure that , purpose of patent is not satisfied.

Aristocrat · Answer

Even i have chosen answer as 'D'
but after going through passage again answer is 'C'
here is my reasoning

" rather than patenting to win exclusive rights to a valuable new technology, patents were filed more for strategic purposes"

The whole passage tells patent is not being used properly for new innovation rather for some startegic purpose
to benefit company
 which is clearly been stated in above statment/
it implies patent not being used for the purpose it should be used for.

Advice:If you r facing problem with RC go through ginn's rc strategy document once, which is available on gmatclub and apply those strategy on 10 passage continoudsly to get clear hold of an idea.

AD2GMAT · Answer

Option D , tries to show that a causal relation is established: Decline in quality -> use of patent as bargain... 
Try asking yourself which part of the passage shows this relationship? you will be amazed to see that this relationship is mentioned nowhere into the passage.

suhasancd · Answer

Why not option A - a study suggesting that the semiconductor industry’s approach to patenting during the period
from 1982 to 1992 yielded unanticipated results ?

The system of patent-granting, which confers temporary

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