ase to conduct a broad review of business-method patents. In re Bilski, as the case is known, is “a very big deal,” says Dennis D. Crouch of the University of Missouri School of Law. It “has the potential to eliminate an entire class of patents.”现在，该国最高专利法院似乎完全准备好要缩减商业方法专利，因为商业方法专利自从十年前第一次批准授予以来一直有争议。
在一项使得知识产权律师们议论纷纷的提议中，美国联邦巡回上诉法院声称它将利用某个具体案件来对商业方法专利进行广泛的复审。
密苏里大学法学院Dennis D. Crouch说，“正如人们所知道的那样，Bilski案例是一件非常大的事情”它可能将消除整个专利类别”。
Curbs on business-method claims would be a dramatic about-face, because it was the Federal Circuit itself that introduced such patents with its 1998 decision in the so-called State Street Bank case, approving a patent on a way of pooling mutual-fund assets. That ruling produced an explosion in business-method patent filings, initially by emerging Internet companies trying to stake out exclusive rights to specific types of online transactions. Later, more established companies raced to add such patents to their files, if only as a defensive move against rivals that might beat them to the punch. In 2005, IBM noted in a court filing that it had been issued more than 300 business-method patents, despite the fact that it questioned the legal basis for granting them. Similarly, some Wall Street investment firms armed themselves with patents for financial products, even as they took positions in court cases opposing the practice.对于商业方法诉求的限制是个戏剧性的彻底变化，因为正是联邦巡回法院自己引进了这种专利。
那是在1998年，对于所谓的美国道富银行的案件中，联邦巡回法院做出了判决，批准了筹集共同基金资产的方法具有专利权。
这一裁决使得商业方法专利文件以几何数级增加，起初只是一些注：to the punch的英文解释为to the first blow or to decisive action ― usually used with beat所以这里翻译为“先下手为强”或“抢占先机”。
The Bilski case involves a claimed patent on a method for hedging risk in the energy market. The Federal Circuit issued an unusual order stating that the case would be heard by all 12 of the court’s judges, rather than a typical panel of th ree, and that one issue it wants to evaluate is whether it should “reconsider” its State Street Bank ruling.前面提到的Bilski案例涉及到一份已申请的方法专利，即关于能源市场的风险规避方The Federal Circuit’s action comes in the wake of a series of recent decisions by the Supreme Court that has narrowed the scope of protections for patent holders. Last April, for example, the justices signaled that too many patents were being upheld for “inventions” that are obvious. The judges on the Federal Circuit are “reacting to the anti-patent trend at the Supreme Court,” says Harold C. Wegner, a patent attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.联邦巡回法院的这一裁决效仿了最高法院。
最高法院最近做出了一系列的判决，缩小了专利持有者的受保范围。
例如，去年四月，法官们认定太多的专利授予了一些显而易见的“发明”。
乔治华盛顿大学法律学院的专利法律师Harold C. Wegner教授表示，“联邦巡回法院的法官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 mediato 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 select 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 itis before anyone else paid attention. Anecdotal evidence of this kind fits nicely with the idea that only certain special people can drive trends.人们之所以认为影响者很重要，是因为受到了“两级传播”理论的影响，即信息先从媒体流向影响者，然后再从影响者流向其他人。
这一理论看似合理，但未经验证。
营销人员接受两级传播理论是因为该理论认为，如果他们能够找到影响者，并对他们施加影响，这些精英们就会替他们完成大部分的营销传播工作。
这一理论似乎还可以解释某些装扮、品牌或社区为何ervation 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, the cascade of change won’t propagate very far or affect many people.研究者的观点源于对社会影响力的简单观察：除了少数像Oprah Winfrey 这样的名人之外（她强大的人气影响力主要来自媒体影响力，而非她与观众互动的人际影响力），即使人群中最有影响力的人也无法与那么多的“其他人”互动，从而引领潮流。