Q19

[Nina]

Why is A the correct answer? especially due to the last paragraph of the first passage that the author thinks it is almost impossible to license all the patents relevant to a software product. i chose D. the first passage mentioned "not joining this arm race" in line 24, but the second passage didn't mention. but can we infer that the author of the second passage may agree with this point?

thanks a lot!

[schmid215]

The author of the second passage clearly want to amass patents also. His purpose in writing it was to announce and justify that.

[Nina]

i agree that the author of the second passage wants to. however, i don't see how the author of the fist passage also intends to do so.

[hyewonkim89]

I couldn't see (A) in Passage A either at first but all the other answer just seemed completely wrong.

Then I saw lines 18-21 where the author A talks about obtaining hundreds/thousands of patents. Passage A doesn't specifically say "portfolios," but still talks about amassing patents.

I was looking at only the fourth paragraph because the question says "software companies" but figured software companies could be included in large technology companies in the third paragraph of Passage A.

At least this is how I came to my conclusion.

Will an LSAT geek confirm/help?

[christine.defenbaugh]

Great discussion going on here guys! You're absolutely right to be checking back to each passage for support for an idea they would both agree with for this Inference Overlap question.

While neither author seems to think the current situation is a desirable one, the advice they would each give to a software company stuck in this arms race would be the same: join it!

Passage A
Paragraph 3 is dedicated to describing the "credible deterrent" of amassing your own defensive patents. Most pointedly, the author refers to not doing so as "a fundamental mistake" (line 23).

Passage B
Schmid215 has nailed it with the earlier post: the entire point of this passage is to announce the decision to join the arms race of patent proliferation! This is explicitly pointed out in line 60, with "we have elected to adopt this same stance", referring back to lines 54-56, "one defense...is to defelop a corresponding portfolio of software patents for defensive purposes."


Bad Advice
(B) Never mentioned in Passage B. The author of Passage A doesn't think such attempts get you very far anyway.
(C) Neither author suggests that exploiting others people's patents is a good thing to strive for - just that it may be inevitable.
(D) Passage B never mentions simply refraining from infringing. While Passage A refers to this idea in paragraph 4, the author points out that avoiding all infringement is nearly impossible.
(E) Passage B never mentions this. Passage A indicates that this research is actually "prohibitively expensive." (lines 32-33)

[CarolineL560]

(D) Passage B never mentions simply refraining from infringing. While Passage A refers to this idea in paragraph 4, the author points out that avoiding all infringement is nearly impossible.

But the question isn't asking what would the two passages' authors advise to combat this patent problem. It is just asking what they would both advise to software companies. Looking at D, I cannot believe that either of the passages' authors would disagree that software companies should avoid patent infringement. It seemed like a weird answer to throw in, like one or both of the authors might be fine with advising knowingly infringing on another company's patents.

I was between A & D for that reason. The support mentioned above led me to feel comfortable agreeing that they both believe amassing their own pile of patents was a smart move, but D just threw me off. Maybe I am overthinking it, and I did choose and stick with (A), but can someone clarify why D is NOT something the two authors would advise to companies??

[CarltonF574]

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