参考答案：我们从历史中得知，现代社会经济的繁荣是建立在其不断把革新成果推向市场的能力上的。专利是这些革新成果的关键：专利为发明者提供了研制新产品可依据的明确的法律地位。现代专利不同于过去的垄断权。专利不是国家批准的、排他的许可证，而是给予其持有者享受其发明带来的经济利益的权利。
许多公共医药官员认为受专利保护的药品是加剧医疗保险开支的原因，这从经济角度来讲是不正确的。另外一个经常听到的论据也是不符合实际的，即对引进产品实行专利保护会破坏本地的仿制药品行业，使药价提高，一般收入的病人无法负担。其实只要看一下德国、英国和美国的情况就知道，这三个国家的药品专利保护程度最高，但也有很强的仿制药品行业存在。

解析：[听力原文]
As we have learned from history, the basis of economic prosperity of modem societies is their ability to maintain a consistent stream of innovations onto the market. Patents are fundamental to these innovations: they create a clear legal position on which an inventor can depend while developing a new idea. A modern patent is not the same thing as previous monopoly rights. A patent is not a state-sanctioned exclusive license, but gives the holder the right to invite economic exploitation of the invention.
The claim by many public health officials that patented drugs lead to greater expenses for the medical insurance systems is economically incorrect. Another often-heard argument is also untrue: Namely, that the introduction of product patent protection would destroy the local generic industry and would lead to higher prices on medicine, not affordable to the average income patient. The best illustration is probably to look at Germany, the UK and the USA, with top standards of pharmaceutical patent protection but where a very strong generic industry exists.