Secrecy in industry

工業(yè)中的秘密

Two factors weigh heavily against the effectiveness of scientific research in industry. One is the general atmosphere of secrecy in which it is carried out, the other the lack of freedom of the individual research worker. In so far as any inquiry is a secret one, it naturally limits all those engaged in carrying it out from effective contact with their fellow scientists either in other countries or in universities, or even, often enough, in other departments of the same firm. The degree of secrecy naturally varies considerably. Some of the bigger firms are engaged in researches which are of such general and fundamental nature that it is a positive advantage to them not to keep them secret. Yet a great many processes depending on such research are sought for with complete secrecy until the stage at which patents can be taken out. Even more processes are never patented at all but kept as secret processes. This applies particularly to chemical industries, where chance discoveries play a much larger part than they do in physical and mechanical industries. Sometimes the secrecy goes to such an extent that the whole nature of the research cannot be mentioned. Many firms, for instance, have great difficulty in obtaining technical or scientific books from libraries because they are unwilling to have names entered as having taken out such and such a book, for fear the agents of other firms should be able to trace the kind of research they are likely to be undertaking.

有兩個因素嚴重地妨礙工業(yè)中科學研究的效率：一是科研工作中普遍存在的保密氣氛;二是研究人員缺乏個人自由。任何一項研究都涉及到保密，那些從事科研的人員自然受到了限制。他們不能和其他國家、其他大學、甚至往往不能與本公司的其他部門的同行們進行有效的接觸。保密程度自然差別很大。某些大公司進行的研究屬于一般和基礎的研究，因此不保密對他們才有利。然而，依賴這種研究的很多工藝程序是在完全保密的情況下進行的，直到可以取得專利權的階段為止。更多的工藝過程根本就不會取得專利權，而是作為秘方保存著。在這化學工業(yè)方面尤為突出。同物理和機械工業(yè)相比，化學工業(yè)中偶然發(fā)現的機會要多得多。有時，保密竟達到了這樣的程度，即連研究工作的整個性質都不準提及。比如，很多公司向圖書館借閱科技書籍時感到困難，因為它們不愿讓人家記下它們公司的名字和借閱的某一本書。他們生怕別的公司的情報人員據此摸到他們可能要從事的某項科研項目。