[C] It has been dismissed by the Federal Circuit
[D] It may change the legal practices in the U.S.
28. The word “about-face” (Line 1, Paro 3) most probably means
[A] loss of good will
[B] increase of hostility
[C] change of attitude
[D] enhancement of dignity
29. We learn from the last two paragraphs that business-method patents
[A] are immune to legal challenges
[B] are often unnecessarily issued
[C] lower the esteem for patent holders
[D] increase the incidence of risks
30. Which of the following would be the subject of the text?
[A] A looming threat to business-method patents
[B] Protection for business-method patent holders
[C] A legal case regarding business-method patents
[D] A prevailing trend against business-method patents
Text 3
In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Aladuell argues that social epidemics are driven in
large part by the acting of a tiny minority of special individuals, often called influentials, who are
unusually informed, persuasive, or well-connected. The idea is intuitively compelling, but it
doesn’t explain how ideas actually spread.
The supposed importance of influentials derives from a plausible sounding but largely
untested theory called the “two step flow of communication”: Information flows from the media to
the influentials and from them to everyone else. Marketers have embraced the two-step flow
because it suggests that if they can just find and influence the influentials, those selected people
will do most of the work for them. The theory also seems to explain the sudden and unexpected
popularity of certain looks, brands, or neighborhoods. In many such cases, a cursory search for
causes finds that some small group of people was wearing, promoting, or developing whatever it
is before anyone else paid attention. Anecdotal evidence of this kind fits nicely with the idea that
only certain special people can drive trends
In their recent work, however, some researchers have come up with the finding that
influentials have far less impact on social epidemics than is generally supposed. In fact, they don’t
seem to be required of all.
The researchers’ argument stems from a simple observing about social influence, with the
exception of a few celebrities like Oprah Winfrey—whose outsize presence is primarily a function
of media, not interpersonal, influence—even the most influential members of a population simply
don’t interact with that many others. Yet it is precisely these non-celebrity influentials who,
according to the two-step-flow theory, are supposed to drive social epidemics by influencing their
friends and colleagues directly. For a social epidemic to occur, however, each person so affected,
must then influence his or her own acquaintances, who must in turn influence theirs, and so on;
and just how many others pay attention to each of these people has little to do with the initial
influential. If people in the network just two degrees removed from the initial influential prove
resistant, for example from the initial influential prove resistant, for example the cascade of