Обучение чтению экономической литературы на английском языке. В 4 ч. Ч. 3 (96

ные риски, так как не знаете, хорошо или плохо он будет продаваться.

6.Мое заявление в патентное бюро было отклонено. Мне придется предоставить доказательства, что я первым изобрел данный прибор.

7.Я не уверен, хотим ли мы продолжать продавать этот товар, когда нам грозит судебный иск. 8. Разные законы иностранных государств затрудняют защиту изобретений. Кроме того, гонорары адвокатов очень высоки.

Read and translate the text using Essential Vocabulary and any necessary dictionary.

Text 8A. Protection of Ideas

If a business or an individual generates a new type of business activity, it is commonly agreed that there should be some method for preventing others copying the activity for a period of time.

This will allow the innovator to recover his or her costs and to be rewarded for a good idea. Quite often, the idea does not result in a profitable activity, but at least the opportunity has been given. In many cases, protection is sought to prevent a competitor from developing a design along similar lines and not to enable the innovator to gain a reward from it. Obtaining protection is often too expensive and the legal costs involved in stopping imitators are even more expensive.

Protecting Designs

In this section we will examine methods to be used for protecting workable ideas which are produced for commercial exploitation rather than works by artists or craftsmen, which are produced in very limited quantity. The idea could be a new invention, or a new way of designing an item in terms of shape.

The general principle regarding protection is that designers who have spent time in developing something which is new and valuable, and who have also taken significant risks, should be given protection from illegal copying for a reasonable time period. Laws have existed for many years in most industrialized countries to give this protection. However, different countries have different ways of sorting out problems interpreting and applying the laws, which makes international protection extremely difficult and very costly.

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The rapid rise of technology, especially in the area of computer technology, has resulted in designs which were not envisaged and taken into account when the laws were formulated. For example, the protection of computer programs is not clearly stated in many countries.

The European Community members are working closely with each other to standardize protection systems, but even within this trading group significant differences exist.

Patent Protection

A patent may be granted to an inventor of a new idea which relates to a specified method of manufacture or a workable product.

Let us assume that you have invented a new type of thin tubular plastic ladder which obtains its rigidity by being inflated using an ordinary bicycle pump. You feel that there is a commercial opportunity in this idea and after you have made a successful working model you want to obtain the benefit of any sales, either by making the product yourself, or by selling the ‘rights’ to an existing manufacturer. You want to prevent anyone else from exploiting the idea without your consent.

Initially you must apply to the Patent Office for a patent, before any details of the invention are made public. Normally the services of a professional patent agent will be used to help prepare the design details and drawings for the patent application. The Patent Office carries out a preliminary search to see if you have come with a new idea. This will allow interested people to see what it is you have invented, and to comment on the validity of the application. If there is no objection and you want to proceed further, you will then instruct the Patent Office to undertake a major examination. This will look at all the technical features of the application, and if this is successful, a patent will be granted. It could take up to two years or more to reach this stage from the initial date of application.

The patent gives you a monopoly right to the design for a maximum period of twenty years, during which time no-one else may produce the design without your permission.

If your inflatable ladder turns out to be a commercial success, there is little doubt that others will try to copy your idea, by making something which is very near, but not identical, to your product. Your best course of action would be to try to reach commercial relationship with the imitator if it is a large, well-known organization. This is because the cost of defending

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your patent would be extremely expensive even if you were to win your legal action.

Registered Design

Let us assume that your inflatable ladder was not the great innovative idea you imagined. Say your patent application was turned down because someone produced evidence to show that an inflatable ladder similar to yours was exhibited at a trade exhibition in the early 1920s.

However, all is not lost. You realize that your ladder has a very distinctive shape, not dictated by the basic function of being a ladder. For example, your ladder has holes cut into a long, thin rectangular shape to provide foot and hand holds, rather than cross ties. You may be able to apply for a Design Registration.

In order to register your design you have to go through some procedures, the same procedure as a patent application, although you now apply to the Designs Registry in London. If the design is confirmed to be ‘novel’, a certificate is issued to protect your design from being copied for a period of up to fifteen years.

Copyright

Assume that your inflatable ladder needs quite a lot of advertising to help promote sales, and that you produce a video film to show how the ladder is transported, inflated and used, Your video, being an original ‘work of art’, is automatically copyright.

This also applies to any catalogue information, or any other product of your own creation, such as photographs of the ladder. There are no fees to pay or forms to fill in.

Copyright protection applies at once, whether you make one or many copies. Although copyright of literary works lasts for fifty years after the death of the author, engineering drawings have a lower protection period with a minimum of fifteen years from the date of publication.

Exercises

1. Answer the questions to the text.

1. Why is it necessary to protect inventions? 2. What kind of ideas needs to be protected? 3. What is the general principle of protecting

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designs? 4. What are the difficulties concerning protection of new workable ideas? 5. What is meant by standardizing protection systems? 6. Who is the patent granted to? 7. What is the Patent Office responsible for? 8. How long does it usually take to investigate technical feature of the application? 9. For how many years will the patent be valid? 10. Why is it recommended that the inventor reach agreement with the firm-imitator? 11. What should you do if your application is turned down? 12. What is copyright? Give examples.

2. Which of the following sentences are not true according to Text 8A?

1. Protecting a new design won’t require from the inventor a lot of costs. 2. Artists and craftsmen will need the same amount of time and money as designers to protect their ideas. 3. New and valuable designs usually get protection for a definite period of time. 4. Every country has its own laws of giving patents to inventors, which makes it difficult to apply such laws internationally. 5.The first examination of a new product is performed in the Design Registration Office. 6. If a person holds the copyright on his/her invention, that doesn’t mean that other people must ask their permission to use it. 7. New engineering designs have the same protection period as literary works. 8. Defending your patent may cost you a lot of money.

3. Match the verb with its definition.

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4. Combine each of the following pairs of sentences into one sentence using too/ enough with Infinitive.

1.Our company is very small. We won’t be able to make much profit.

2.The risks are significant. We can’t take them. 3. The productivity is very high. We are going to expand our business. 4. Don’t open a bank account now. It is difficult. 5. Becky is clever. She imports and sells model houses. It is profitable. 6. Our business isn’t successful. We can’t employ four more members of staff. 7. The competition is intense. It is hard to find new markets. 8. She is wealthy. She is willing to help us financially. 9. The lighting in the office is low. It is impossible to work hard.

5.Translate sentences with phrasal verbs.

1. There is a crisis at the office and they need me to sort it out. 2. The system has broken down. It will take days to sort it out. 3. We need to sort out these papers. 4. Our manager sorted out our problems and everything is fine now. 5. She turned down the job offer because she didn’t want to work shifts. 6. The sales manager came up with a new idea for increasing sales. 7. We took on extra staff last summer. 8. At the meeting we looked at the problem of copyright protection. 9. Our new product turned out to be very successful. 10. A patent is granted to an inventor who comes out with a new product.

Read the text and answer the questions.

1. What kind of store is Harrods? 2. Do you know where Benidorm is? Is it a big town? 3. Why do you think that Harrods of Knightsbrige is particularly concerned to take legal action in this case? 4. What are the advantages and disadvantages for the Spanish disco in adopting the Harrods name?

Text 8B. The Harrods Case

Harrods of Knightsbridge, the top people’s store, has been enraged by a favourite nightspot (ночной клуб) for Britons on holiday on the Spanish Costa Blanca. Harrods of Benidorm has not only taken on the world-famous name of the exclusive London store where the Queen is a customer. It has also ‘borrowed’ the colours of the classic green and gold logo and the same lettering. The sign flashes in bright yellow lights between the high-rise budget holiday hotels of Benidorm dirty and

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unpleasant Bincon de Loix area. The district has none of the gentility of noisy Knightsbridge. It is where noisy tourists gather for cut price beer and all-night happy hours, fish and chips.

Harrods of London is not amused. The large store jealously guards its symbol. In the past the store has restrained various offenders, including a Harrods mail-order firm in Colchester, a Harrods furniture dealer in Clapham and even a Harrods restaurant 12,000 miles away in New Zealand. Michael Cole, a spokesman for Harrods, said: “We are taking legal steps through our lawyers in Madrid to prevent this place infringing our copyright.” Pedro Jurado, Spanish manager of the Benidom Harrods, is unconcerned. “I’ve heard nothing about it,” he said, “why should Harrods worry us? We are good publicity for them.”

Read Text 8C and answer the questions.

Text 8C. Failure is Glorious

Alberto Alessi transformed his family’s housewares business into a trendsetting (модный) design giant. His secret: walking the borderline between success and failure. Because that’s where your next big breakthrough will come from.

Alessi, 54, has followed that very advice ever since he took the reins of the family business in 1970. His partnerships with some of the world’s best designers have transformed this 80-year-old company from housewares supplier to design leader. But Alessi is just proud of his flops. It’s the duds that enjoy centre stage in the company’s private museum, where Alessi’s designers meet weekly to discuss new projects. He has even published a book of prototypes that never made it to production.

Fortunately, most of the products created by Alessi’s 200 designers are winners. The Alessi ‘dream factory’ of 500 workers, which Alberto runs with brothers Michele and Alessio, has over the past decade raised sales by around 15 per cent a year, to $100 million today.

Now, having conquered our kitchens, Alessi is looking at our cell phones, watches and maybe even our cars. How will he do it? By walking along the border between the ‘possible and the not possible’. In an interview at the Alessi factory he explained how to fail in style.

The area of the ‘possible’ is the area in which we develop products that the customer will love and buy. The area of the ‘not possible’ is

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represented by the new projects that people are not yet ready to understand or accept. At Alessi, we work as close as we can to the borderline. Because when we succeed, we give birth to a new product that surprises people and because it is completely unknown, it doesn’t have any competition – which means we can enjoy big margins.

Our industrial organization is very flexible. We have a few best-sellers that sell more than 100,000 pieces a year, while others sell in much smaller numbers. In any case, Alessi is not a mass-production company. It’s a research lab for the applied arts. And that means we have to experiment a lot. But doing experiments doesn’t just mean doing the research and making a prototype. It means putting a finished product into the marketplace.

Our most beautiful fiasco was the Philippe Starck Hot kettle. I didn’t realise that we had gone too far. Inside the kettle was some complicated but very intelligent engineering. On the prototypes, it worked well, but when we produced thousands and thousands, it didn’t work so well. Our customers seem happy to take risks with us. Customers are much more progressive than marketing people or retailers think. Society is much more exciting than just a target market. A target market is a cage where people try to put society. It bears no relation to what people feel and want.

1. When did Alessi use to sell? 2. What was the advice that Alberto Alessi followed when he took the reins of the family business? 3. Is Alessi a mass-production company? What kind of company is it now? 4. Where is the borderline between success and failure according to Mr. Alessi? 5. How does Mr. Alessi explain their success? 6. What was their favorite fiasco? 7. How can failure be glorious? 8. How does the company view their customers? 9. What kind of sell phones, watches and cars could they produce? 10. Do you agree with the ideas of the last two sentences?

Being an Alessi’s designer what can you say about your company?

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UNIT 9

Infinitive Constructions. Complex Object, Complex Subject and

For-to-Infinitive Construction

Phrasal verbs: heat up; be aware of; be accused of; succeed in; work up to; be in competition with; having nothing to do; build up

Exercises

1. Translate the sentences. Comment on the use of Infinitive and Infinitive Constructions.

1. Many organizations are known to be still exploring the ways of better using intranets and portals to their full potential. 2. Supporting events-based processing requires the intranet or portal to provide access to a number of applications, such as publishing capabilities, database management and others. 3. It is important for any manager to understand how to best use a new technology as a potential source of competitive edge. 4. Many organizations are likely to have started to shift the role of their corporative portal from the communication means to an access point for business tools and applications. 5. Responsibility for introducing every new application is unlikely to link with a single group or team. 6. The productivity benefits are likely to come from the new system to be implemented. 7. It is for a manager or work flow expert to map out the impact of different events to the further development of the company.

8.The Employee for Self-Services (ESS) started in 1998 and aimed at transforming personal management proved to be a hit from the start.

9.This approach is sure to enable employees to select options for flexible benefits. 10. Allowing people to take charge of their own careers seem to fit well with the corporate-wide knowledge management goal to ‘apply everywhere what we learn anywhere’. 11. At last a date for negotiations

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