|
发表于 2008-4-25 12:54:23
|
显示全部楼层
Conclusion
Reverse engineering is fundamentally directed to discovery and learning.
Engineers learn the state of the art not just by reading printed publications, going to
technical conferences, and working on projects for their firms, but also by reverse
engineering others’ products. Learning what has been done before often leads to new
products and advances in know-how. Reverse engineering may be a slower and more
expensive way for information to percolate through a technical community than patenting
or publication, but it is nonetheless an effective source of information.376 Of necessity,
reverse engineering is a form of dependent creation, but this does not taint it, for in truth,
all innovators, as the saying goes, “stand on the shoulders of giants”377 as well as on the
shoulder of other incremental innovators.378 Progress in science and the useful arts is
advanced by dissemination of know-how, whether by publication, patenting or reverse
engineering. |
|