这题没人问过,请大家指点:
The system of patentgranting,
which confers
temporary monopolies for
Line the exploitation of new tech-
(5) nologies, was originally
established as an incentive
to the pursuit of risky new
ideas. Yet studies of the
most patent-conscious
(10) business of all—the semiconductor
industry—suggest
that firms do not necessarily
become more innovative as
they increase their patenting
(15) activity. Ziedonis and Hall,
for example, found that
investment in research and
development (a reasonable
proxy for innovation) did
(20) not substantially increase
between 1982 and 1992,
the industry’s most feverish
period of patenting. Instead,
semiconductor firms simply
(25) squeezed more patents out
of existing research and
development expenditures.
Moreover, Ziedonis and
Hall found that as patenting
(30) activity at semiconductor
firms increased in the
7
1980’s, the consensus
among industry employees
was that the average quality
(35) of their firms’ patents
declined. Though patent
quality is a difficult notion
to measure, the number of
times a patent is cited in
(40) the technical literature is
a reasonable yardstick, and
citations per semiconductor
patent did decline during
the 1980’s. This decline in
(45) quality may be related to
changes in the way semiconductor
firms managed
their patenting process:
rather than patenting to win
(50) exclusive rights to a valuable
new technology, patents
were filed more for strategic
purposes, to be used as
bargaining chips to ward
(55) off infringement suites or
as a means to block
competitors’ products.

10.Which of the following will clearly weeken the author's claim about what constituts a reasonable yard stick for measuring patent quality?

A.It is more difficulty to have an article for publication in the technical literature of semiconductor industry than it is in the technical literature of most other industries.

E.Low-quality patents tend to be discussed in the technical literature as frequently as high-quality patents.

答案是E.文中说Though patent quality is a difficult notion to measure, the 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.说明半导体业的文章被引用次数下降说明其质量下降.weaken的话A指明他因,是因为半导体业的文章比较难发表. 我觉得A很合适啊,E是怎么WEAKEN的? 谢谢

文章说可以通过某项patent名字在科技文献中出现的次数来衡量该项patent的质量，

E指出名字出现次数多少与质量无关，正好weaken了我highlight出来的部分吗

ding !!!!