Secrecy in industry 2

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.
然而，依赖这种研究的很多工艺程序是在完全保密的情况下进行的，直到可以取得专利权的阶段为止。更多的工艺过程根本就不会取得专利权，而是作为秘方保存着。在这化学工业方面尤为突出。同物理和机械工业相比，化学工业中偶然发现的机会要多得多。有时，保密竟达到了这样的程度，即连研究工作的整个性质都不准提及。比如，很多公司向图书馆借阅科技书籍时感到困难，因为它们不愿让人家记下它们公司的名字和借阅的某一本书。他们生怕别的公司的情报人员据此摸到他们可能要从事的某项科研项目。

New words and expressions

process
n. 过程
patent
n. 专利；
v. 得到专利权
agent
n. 情报人员