College English Creative Reading 3 跨文化交际英语·阅读教程 3 Unit 1 Intellectual Property
Note on the Topic
Learning Objectives
1. Gain a full understanding of the concept of intellectual property; 2. Explore the differing attitudes within different societies and among different people towards the concept of ownership of ideas and how freely other people should be able to use these ideas;
3. Consider various text structures and identify contrasting information within a text;
4. Discuss and create a short role-play on the theme of plagiarism.
Before You Read
1.Watch the following video and discuss the following questions with a partner.
2.Discuss the following questions with a partner. 2.1 What is the video about?
This video explains what intellectual property is and the reasons why
people should care.
2.2 According to the video, what is intellectual property?
According to the video, intellectual property is trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and patents.
2.3 Why should people know the concept of intellectual property? Because intellectual property is in everybody’s business. People should know intellectual property so that they can protect their own values and avoid infringing others’ intellectual property.
2.4 According to the video, why do people care about intellectual property?
Because companies’ values, projects’ values, inventions’ values and even people’s values are in that intellectual property.
2.5Do you think intellectual property is important to you? Why or why not?
Answers will vary to this question. A sample answer could be:
I think intellectual property is important to me because I have spent a lot of time on making my ideas into concrete product. I need to protect it so as to protect my own value. Also, intellectual property helps me to respect others’ fruits of labor.
Reading A Piracy in the Twenty-First Century Text 1____________________________________________
Modern societies are reliant upon technological innovation, which is underpinned by secure intellectual property rights. Great progress has been made in getting countries across the world to accede to international agreements on enforcing intellectual property rights. But it was not always thus, and much remains to be done. Let us review the situation in the past as a lesson in what happens without adequate protection for intellectual property holders.
Background Information:
The Texts: Piracy in the Twenty-First Century
The texts discuss intellectual property and express particular views about this topic. The term “intellectual property” suggests that products of the mind can be identified and owned, bought, or sold just as physical goods or land can be owned, bought, or sold. This has been viewed in very different ways in history. It has also been viewed in different ways in different cultures. Even goods and land have been thought about in quite different ways in different cultures. In many traditions, for example among many native Americans, concepts of ownership did not include the idea of owning land. Similarly, there are different traditions about owning ideas or artistic productions.
Today intellectual property is protected by the world intellectual
property organization (WIPO), which is a specialized agency of the United Nations. The majority of United Nations members are members of WIPO. WIPO offers a means of protecting intellectual property across borders and also offers ways of resolving potential infringement issues without going to court. This last point is quite important because, as the writer of Text 2 notes, there is a lot of money involved in intellectual property. Many large firms, particularly technological companies, spend much time and money involved in possible infringement cases.
The two texts here offer opposing views of intellectual property rights and thus reflect the current debate. On the one hand, many people regard intellectual property (ip) as crucial to a company or a product’s success. On the other hand, the high costs involved in attaining any item protected by IP can have a negative effect on the spirit of collaboration and innovation.
参考译文：
二十一世纪的盗版现象
课文一
现代社会依赖于技术创新，而技术创新须依靠知识产权来保障。越来越多的国家遵守国际条约，实行知识产权保护。但这方面做得还远远不够。我们来回顾一下过去，看看缺乏知识产权保护会导致什么样的后果，从而吸取教训。