Chapter 61 first quarter

The various departments of Tozai Denso Co., Ltd.'s Tokyo head office usually meet on Monday morning, and the heads of each department convey the resolutions of the meeting or arrange work plans.If the responsible persons have something to announce, they will also use this occasion. On a Monday in mid-April, Nagasaka, the head of the first patent section of the Patent Department, mentioned the Seto Bridge that had been opened to traffic a few days ago.Together with the Seikan Tunnel, which opened to traffic last month, the distance between various parts of Japan has been shortened, further developing towards an automobile society, he said.But at the same time, the competition is bound to become more intense, and colleagues must have a sense of urgency and be prepared for it.This was the subject of the conversation, presumably a paraphrase of someone's speech at the previous week's meeting.

After the meeting, the employees go back to their seats and start working.Someone made a phone call, someone fetched a document, someone left in a hurry.Similar scenes can be seen almost every Monday. Gao Gongcheng also put into work as usual, starting to complete the patent application procedures that were not completed last Friday.He used to keep a few less urgent tasks for next week as a warm-up for his mind. Before the work was finished, I heard someone say "Group E collection".The speaker was Narita, who was promoted to team leader at the end of last year. Group E is a group responsible for electrical, electronic, and computer-related patents. E is taken from the first letter of Electronics in English. There are five members including the team leader.

Cheng and others sat down around Narita's desk. "This matter is very important," Narita's expression was slightly serious, "it has something to do with the production technology expert system. Everyone knows what it is?" Including Cheng, three people nodded.Only Yamano, who just joined the company last year, apologized: "I don't know very well." "Do you know expert systems?" Narita asked. "I don't know... I've only heard of the name." "What about the AI?" "Uh, I mean artificial intelligence." Yamano replied uncertainly.

In the recent fast-growing computer industry, research on how to make computers closer to the human brain has become increasingly vigorous.For example, when a person passes by another person, he does not deliberately calculate the distance between himself and the other person to determine the steps to move, but to "appropriately" decide the speed and direction based on experience or intuition.Let the computer have such flexible thinking and judgment ability, it is called "artificial intelligence". "Expert system is one of the applications of artificial intelligence. It is a system that replaces experts with computers." Narita said, "People who are usually called experts not only have rich knowledge, but also have skills in professional fields, right? Put these Make a rigorous system so that laymen can also make expert judgments with this system. This is the expert system. Now the medical expert system and the management consultant expert system are already on the market." Speaking of this, Narita asked Yamano if he understood .

"Generally understand." Yamano replied. "Our company noticed this system two or three years ago, partly because the company was growing so fast that there was a big age gap between the veterans and the newcomers. Once the old folks retired, the company lacked specialists. Especially for things like metalworking Production technologies such as heat treatment and chemical treatment must use professional knowledge and skills, and the situation will be very serious without veterans. Therefore, if an expert system is established now, even if only young technicians are left in the future, they will be able to handle it.”

"This is the production technology expert system?" "That's right. It was jointly developed by the Production Technology Department and the System Development Department. It has been loaded into the workstation, so it should be usable?" Narita asked while looking at the other three people. "Yes," Cheng replied, "but the prerequisite is to have the password to search the technical data." The technical data contains many secrets within the company, so even employees of the company must apply separately to obtain the password.Since Cheng and other patent department personnel have to search for patent data in their work, they have all obtained the password.

"Okay, that's the end of the explanation." Narita adjusted his posture and lowered his voice, "What I just said has nothing to do with us, it can be said that it has nothing to do with it at all. Because the premise of the production technology expert system is only for internal use of the company, it basically has nothing to do with The patent department is out of luck.” "What's wrong?" a colleague asked. Narita nodded slightly. "The people from the system development department came here just now. They said that a kind of computer software has appeared among several backbone manufacturers. It is said that the software is simply a replica of the metal processing expert system."

His words made the juniors look at each other in blank dismay. "What's wrong with that software?" Cheng asked. Narita leaned forward slightly. "I got the software by chance. The system development department and the production technology department studied the content and found that the data in it was very similar to the metal processing part of our production technology expert system." "So, is our system program leaked?" A senior who was one year older than Cheng asked. "It's not entirely certain, but the possibility cannot be ruled out."

"Don't know the source of the software?" "I do know that it is a software development company in Tokyo. They seem to have released the software as a publicity." "publicity?" "That software is a trial version, and there is only a small amount of data in it. It means to use it for you first, and if you are satisfied, you can buy a real metal processing expert system from them." Oh, honest face, the same as the trial size of cosmetics. "The problem is," Narita continued, "in case the content of our production technology expert system really leaks out, and the software is indeed copied from our stuff, how can we prove it? Also, if it can be proved, Can we take legal measures to stop them from making and selling them?"

"So you want us to investigate?" Cheng asked. Narita nodded. "Computer programs are the subject of copyright protection. However, it is not easy to prove that the content is plagiarized. Just like the plagiarism of novels, it is difficult to define how similar it is to be illegal. But let's try. .” "However," said Yamano, "how could the contents of our expert system leak out? Technical information is strictly managed." Narita sneered. "I'll tell you an interesting story. There was a company developing a new type of turbocharger in high secrecy. The parts were made one by one, and the sample No. 1 was finally completed. But after two hours," Narita approached the mountains," the competition An identical supercharger is placed on the desk of the head of the company's turbo engine development department."

"Ah!" Yamano exclaimed and froze. Narita smiled smugly. "It's called development competition." "yes?" Looking at the still unconvinced Shan Ye, Cheng smiled wryly, because he had also heard the same story.