There Are Four Areas Of US Federal Law Linked Under The Rubric GMAT Reading Comprehension

Reading Passage Question

There are four areas of US federal law linked under the rubric of ‘intellectual property’ that we ought to keep separate in our minds. In an essay published in The Politics of Law (2010), Keith Aoki defines each as follows. Copyright protects ‘original works such as books, music, sculpture, movies and aspects of computer programs’ that are ‘embodied or fixed in a tangible medium’. This protection does not require a work to be entirely novel and extends only to its ‘original aspects’, to ‘a particular expression … not the underlying ideas’, and not to ‘independently created or similar works’. Under the umbrella of copyright law are original, concrete expressions, not ideas — the same story and script idea can generate many distinct movies, for instance. Then there are patents, which cover ‘new and useful inventions, manufactures, compositions of matter and processes reduced to practice by inventors’ with ‘rigorous requirements of subject matter, novelty, utility and non-obviousness’. Patents protect realised inventions and ideas in gestation — e.g., here is a new method for collecting rainwater, and this is a machine that does just that. Trademarks (and the related ‘trade dresses’) meanwhile protect consumers from ‘mistake, confusion and deception’ about the sources of commercial goods: the ‘G’ in Gucci, Apple’s apple, a distinctive packaging. Finally, there are trade secrets, or secret information that confers economic benefits on its holder and is subject to the holder’s reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy. Each regime has a public-policy justification: copyright law incentivises the production of creative works, which populate the public domain of culture. Patent law lets inventors and users benefit from the original ideas disclosed in a patent filing, and aims to make research and development economically feasible by attracting investment in new technologies and products. Trademark law protects customers by informing them that their preferred vendor – and not some counterfeiter making inferior goods — is the source of the goods they’re buying. Copyright- and patent-holders extract monopoly rent from protected subject matter, or its concrete expression, for a limited period. Such limited exclusivity is meant to encourage the further production of original expressions and inventions by providing raw materials for other creators and inventors to build on.Media and technology have been shaped by these laws, and indeed many artists and creators owe their livelihoods to such protections. But recently, in response to the new ways in which the digital era facilitates the creation and distribution of scientific and artistic products, the foundations of these protections have been questioned. Those calling for reform, such as the law professors Lawrence Lessig and James Boyle, free software advocates such as Richard Stallman, and law and economics scholars such as William Landes and Judge Richard Posner, ask: is ‘intellectual property’ the same kind of property as ‘tangible property’, and are legal protections for the latter appropriate for the former? And to that query, we can add: is ‘intellectual property’ an appropriate general term for the widely disparate areas of law it encompasses?

“There are four areas of US federal law linked under the rubric”- is a GMAT reading comprehension exercise. Candidates need to be highly proficient in GMAT reading comprehension. There are three comprehension questions in this GMAT reading comprehension section. The purpose of the GMAT Reading Comprehension questions is to evaluate candidates' comprehension, analysis, and application skills. Candidates who are actively preparing can benefit from GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solutions and Explanation

1. A difference between ‘patent’ and ‘copyright’ according to the passage is:

A) Patent protects inventions whereas copyright protects original ideas.
B) Patent protects inventions whereas copyright protects only artistic products.
C) Patent protects new ideas whereas copyright protects unoriginal ideas as well.
D) Copyright protects creations whereas patents protect all processes.
E)Patent protects realised inventions whereas copyright protects concrete expressions.

2. Which of the following is not a benefit of intellectual property laws?

A) They encourage originality and creativity.
B) They prevent deceiving customers through counterfeit and inferior goods.
C) The inventors can cash in on their original ideas.
D) They make new products and technologies more economically feasible.
E)It helps creators and artists sustain themselves.

3. Which of the following represents the essence of the opinions of ‘those calling for reforms’ in intellectual property laws?

A) Should intellectual property be broken down to something easier to define?
B) Are the legal protections given to intellectual property widely disparate?
C) Should intellectual property be given the same legal protections as tangible property is?
D) Is intellectual property an appropriate term for the wide range of laws it engenders?
E)Is intellectual property tangible enough to be brought under the purview of law?

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