Word: theft
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...amateur scientist himself, wrote the nation's first patent law in 1793, he was deter mined to ensure that "ingenuity should receive a liberal encouragement." Under his law, "any new and useful art, machine, manufacture or composition of matter" was patentable and thus legally shielded from theft. Last week, in a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court applied the Jeffersonian measure to one of the latest examples of human ingenuity. It ruled that new forms of life created in the laboratory could be patented...
...routine is alcohol. Buying liquor, however, is difficult. Draftees earn a mere four rubles a month (about $6), enough for 13 bottles of beer or a third of a liter of vodka or a dozen packs of cigarettes. Because draftees are short of cash, the Soviet military has a theft problem. Auto parts, grease, rope, felt boots, heavy overcoats and other items in short supply for civilians are smuggled off base to nearby villages and sold or bartered for liquor. Soviet soldiers are as adept as their counterparts elsewhere in the world at concocting an alcoholic brew from such unusual...
Animals, sadly, are not the only targets of destructive youths, who account for about half of the nation's street crime, theft and burglary, and one out of ten murders. In Georgia last year two girls of 15 were charged with killing two other teen-agers just to get their prized blue jeans. In Belorussia, eleven youths were arrested after a rampage in which they beat a policeman to death. In Leningrad vandals thought to be youths smashed 29 statues in the garden of the Summer Palace...
There is the matter of theft. Auto parts are so scarce that the wise driver removes such tempting features as windshield wipers and side-view mirrors whenever he parks on the street. Even when the Soviet motorist leaves his car in the shop he must take care, for his auto may be stripped of items needed to repair other cars. A favorite Soviet axiom: "Your car comes out of the shop with fewer parts than it went in with...
Violence in schools has got to be dealt with effectively. A muscular and unprecedented step in the right direction may have just been taken in California. Over a six-year period, Los Angeles County schools lost an estimated $100 million as a result of school muggings, lawsuits, theft and vandalism while city and school officials ineffectually wrung their hands over jurisdictional problems. Last month the attorney general for the state of California sued, among others, the mayor of Los Angeles, the entire city council, the chief of police and the board of trustees of the Los Angeles Unified School District...