Assignment Task
Problem 1-1
You are a botanist exploring a remote region of a small tropical country. You stumble across a field of strange flowers that you have never encountered before. The tribespeople tell you that they use the flower to heal various ailments by rubbing its petals on the skin and chanting a healing prayer. You pluck one of the flowers and when you return to your campsite that night, you show it to a fellow explorer who is an expert in biochemistry. The biochemist smells the flower and says that it is vaguely reminiscent of substance P. Substance P is a medicine widely used to treat a variety of serious diseases. She tells you that substance P is easy to detect: It turns bright yellow when exposed to intense heat. That evening, you put the flower over the campfire and, sure enough, it turns bright yellow. When you return home, you work for months to isolate the active ingredient in the flower. It is not substance P, but a close structural analog. In chemical experiments, the extract shows great promise for fighting many of the diseases that Substance P can treat without Substance P’s dreaded side effects.
1. What rights, if any, should you have in this discovery and research? Should those rights prevent anyone else from going back to the tropical country, finding the flower, and isolating the chemical you have discovered?
2. You make a profit selling your medicine throughout the world, including to the native tribespeople of the tropical country. John, a chemist in your company, is angered by this policy. Your formula is a carefully guarded secret, but John publishes it in the New England Journal of Medicine. A nonprofit organization begins producing the medicine and selling your product to the native tribespeople at a discount. The organization advertises that it is selling your medicine for pennies a year. Should you be able to stop them from selling your medicine? Should you be able to stop them from using the name of your medicine in their ads?
3. You have named your medicine “Tropicurial.” To advertise the product, one of the employees in your advertising department writes a song based on the very distinctive sounds of the wind in the inland coves of the country mixed with the native birds’ calls. The tribespeople of the tropical country have a song that sounds remarkably similar to your advertising tune. The song is important to their tribal identity, and they argue that it is inappropriate to use their tribal identity song to commercialize your product. They ask you to stop using it. Should they be able to stop you from using the name or song?
4. When you refuse to stop using the Tropicurial song to advertise your product, the tribespeople write a new version of their song entitled “Tropicursical” with angry lyrics claiming that your product destroys culture. Should you be able to stop them from singing the song? National Geographic records the tribespeople singing “Tropicursical.” The recording plays as part of the news report on their television show. It is also available for download on National Geographic’s website. Individuals download copies of the song and e-mail it to their friends. It spreads like wildfire over the Internet and eventually popular radio stations begin playing it over the air. Should you be able to stop these copies and performances?
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