1. BIOL 3095 November 3, 2011.
Seminar Reflection #4. “It’s the lack of innovation, stupid: Intellectual property .”
By: Angélica M. González Sánchez Student number: 804-11-3354
On the seminar given by Dr. Roberto Zayas, he presented the topic of intellectual
property. Dr. Zayas defined us all about intellectual property, which is the field of laws that
protects ideas. This field includes trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and patents, on which
Roberto focused his discussion. A patent is the right to keep others from the usage and
manufacturing of an invention with the condition of revealing all about the product. Our speaker
also described the process and the requirements of patenting. Furthermore, he ended up
discussing about patentable subject matter and how it relates to Science. As we know, Science
commits most of its efforts on reaching new discoveries to keep up promoting advancement.
New findings are meant to be applied to fields of our lives, so that they can be useful. For this,
they have to pass through patenting. Controversy starts on deciding which scientific innovations
should be patentable and which shouldn’t. Since most of the actual discoveries on Science imply
living organisms, this dilemma has a lot to do with ethics and perceptions about life.
In conclusion, through this seminar I got to learn that patenting has great implications in
Science. Some say that it prevents people alien to the discovery from taking advantage of it, on
which case it promotes innovation and rewards inventors. Others say that it slows the process of
discovery and disrupts scientific unity. In my opinion, patenting is useful to avoid fraud, but its
dimensions should be a little more flexible to really induce novelty. For all of what I learned and
its usefulness on my formation as a scientist, I consider this seminar to be very productive and
interesting.