Science, Technology, and Intellectual Property
Science and technology provide many societal benefits, such as the enhancement of economic growth or quality of life. They also can produce negative, unintended consequences. Most societies promote science and technology, but this can be costly. Establishment of IPRs that protect new works and give innovators the right to profit from their creations provides incentives for expensive innovation without the need for direct government subsidies (Posner 2004). At the same time, IPRs may maintain or aggravate wealth inequities.
Rights have little meaning unless they can be enforced and modern technology has made IPRs enforcement increasingly difficult. Photocopiers make it possible for anyone with access to a machine to reproduce works entitled to copyright protection and the Internet allows anyone to make literary or musical works available to the world.
Science and technology challenge intellectual property systems, particularly patent laws. New fields such as information technology and genetic engineering force courts to decide how to apply laws made before such technologies were contemplated. As knowledge itself becomes more valuable, people and institutions seek additional protection for control of the knowledge and its profits. At the same time, society has an increasing need for access to some kinds of knowledge and protection from the use of others.
Abstract ideas cannot be patented but their applications can qualify for patent protection. For example, “Einstein could not patent his celebrated law that E MC2; nor could Newton have patented the law of gravity. Such discoveries are ‘manifestations of Nature, free to all men and reserved exclusively to none.”‘ (Diamond v. Chakrabarty, p. 309, quoting Funk Brothers Seed Co. v. Kalo Inoculant Co., 333 U.S. 127, 130, 1948). General ideas remain in the public domain but their applications may be privatized through the patenting process.
Biotechnology, perhaps more than any other field, has challenged courts and lawmakers to reconsider intellectual property laws. In 1972 Ananda Chakrabarty, a microbiologist, sought a U.S. patent for a genetically engineered bacterium. The U.S. Patent Office denied the application because bacteria are products of nature, and living things cannot be patented under U.S. law. The case was appealed and eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court restated the principle that natural phenomena cannot be patented, but found that Chakrabarty’s bacterium was “a product of human ingenuity,” and therefore was patentable under U.S. law.
So many biotechnology patents have been issued for such small innovations that some fear the creation of a tragedy of the anti-commons in which new innovations involve so many existing patents that innovation is discouraged. At least one study has found the anti-commons is not yet a significant deterrent to innovation, but that the situation should be monitored.
IPRs can be attached to writings or products regarded as dangerous or immoral, and IPRs tend to legitimize such works by implying social approval. Societies must decide whether to provide protection for harmful or otherwise objectionable work. New technologies, particularly those that create or replicate life, often trigger debate over whether the work should be done at all, much less be protected by law. IPRs also establish ownership of particular innovations, which may help to determine liability if a product causes harm. This raises questions of whether innovators should be held responsible for their products, particularly when the products are used in unintended ways.
Public funding for science and technology further complicate intellectual property issues. Who should benefit from works developed under public funding, the creator or the public? What balance of public/private benefits best serves societal goals?
Academics build their reputations by producing intellectual works. They seek recognition for their accomplishments, control over any economic benefits, and protection against plagiarism. IPRs promote release of information to the public by assuring the author of protection for the work, even after it is made public. IPRs protect authors from possible appropriation of ideas by others, including peer reviewers, before the work has actually been published.
Ownership can be a major IPRs issue. Who owns the product of collaborative work? At what point does a contribution by a supervisor, graduate student, or coworker deserve coauthorship? When the creator works for a corporation or a university, does ownership lie with the creator or the institution? What about funding agencies? In many cases, ownership or authorship is established by disciplinary customs or by agreements among the parties (Kennedy 1997).
Plagiarism is professionally unacceptable and sometimes illegal, but timing is critical to determining whether plagiarism has occurred. According to Donald Kennedy, “To take someone else’s idea and use it before it has been placed in the public domain is a form of theft … [t]o make further use of someone else’s idea after it has been published is scholarship” (1997, p. 212). Of course attribution is critical even, or especially, in scholarship, whether or not a work is protected.
Science and Technology For a Better Future
One of the most often asked questions in the contemporary world is ‘What is the meaning of science and technology?’ Man is innovative in nature. The ability of man to create and change the shape of that which he has created is what sets him apart from other organisms. Science is the approach to study that emphasized the use of empirical evidence to come up with new ideas. As one of the branches of knowledge, it sets out to find out more on the nature of the physical world. Through practical analysis of phenomena, scientists have come up with solutions to many problems that have plagued mankind for many years.
The first step in scientific undertaking is coming up with a problem. Once a problem has been identified, there has to be dependent and independent variables that guide the researcher in formulating a hypothesis that will help him to come up with the most accurate results. A hypothesis is a tentative statement assumes that one of the two possible outcomes will happen. The researcher can choose to adopt any of the possible outcomes as his hypothesis. This is the foundation that led to the discovery of cures for many diseases that initially used to kill millions annually such as malaria.
The scientific approach to research is responsible for development of technology. Technology is the ability for man to make tasks easier to perform through a highly sets of scientific applications which build on interrelatedness of many basic principles. Machines are synonymously used with the concept of technology. Yet the contemporary use of the word presumes things like computers and mobile phones. It is true that technology these days must be viewed in terms of the changes brought into the existing communication systems through the computer. The electronics industry has grown a lot within a short span of time. Science has contributed largely to this since it is through continued research that new machines are being unveiled.
When trying to answer the question ‘What is the meaning of science and technology?’ we have to view science as the study of the natural world while technology has to be viewed as the study of how to manipulate the natural world in order to suit man. This relationship is best understood through Science and Technologies Studies (STS). Being a scientific discipline, this study highlights the relationship between these two areas of study and how they affect the cultural, scientific, political and social set-up of world’s communities. The amount of information that is coming out of scientific enquiries is overwhelming. It is surprising how universities have succeeded in harmonizing the large body of research data that comes from research institutions fro around the world.
To differentiate between scientific enquiries from the artistic ones, there is need to look into the nature of truth. Science has no room for that which is taken to be true or false on the power of belief. This is the best way in which we can answer the question ‘What is the meaning of science and technology?’ There has to be a way of verifying the truth or falsity of any phenomenon. This is called the verification principle. There must be truth conditions which in practical terms are variables. If a statement cannot be proven to true or false, it is without sense and is not good for science and technology.
Behind Science and Technology
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Staring at this fourteen inch size screen in front of me, I was smiling sheepishly and at the same time unusually amused, it is not my first time, nor second or even going to be the last time I will use a video cam, but today’s case is a different issue, maybe is it because of the picture quality it portrayed or the coverage it gave? I was goaded to dismantle the tool so as to see what it was composed of, which I did and to my amazement I saw only chips all connected to a panel and this increased my curiosity as I wondered more what could be responsible for the effective functioning of this device, capturing an image and displaying on a screen exactly as it is.
Sounds awkward? Actually I have really been having serious and diverted thought about this, right since beyond the scope of science and technology. In this our age of science and technology, one would see it as a state of ignorance and naivety to find that someone is still actually thinking towards this line of thought, doubting the existence of machines, functions of computers, cell phones, radio sets, TV sets, wireless devices like the Bluetooth and the WLAN which is commonly known as the Wireless Local Area Network, and also not forgetting to mention the widely used wireless society, The Internet. But in case you still want to castigate this write up I still ask that you actually complete the remaining part of this article and put it into thought.
So I am still staring at the chips in the camcorder, my thoughts wondered as I scrutinized every inch and component of the microchip one could easily observe the bewilderment visibly expressed on my face.
Now many thoughts were racing through my mind, how did this little component sum up to a device that can capture my image perfectly or let’s say a little or less perfectly and transfer to a screen? I seem to be asking myself that question alone as I looked round me to realize no one was actually there to give me the answer. At first it looked absurd then when I had started to check if really I was seeing myself or just an image programmed on the cam. but alas what a thought, as I was really quick in condemning that line of thought as I recalled several times I have stood in front of the mirror, and moreover there were up to 6Billion people in the world and I imagined the producers of this device must have considered that and so I wondered how the hell were the chances that they could actually programmed the cam to display a variety of 6Billion different faces at different locations and tell the cam to know when and how to display any at the right time.
Now I stared at the screen itself, a 14inch built box, with an LCD display. How the hell was it able to show my picture? It stared at me, although can’t recognize if I was actually looking at it or at the image in the screen. I started to recall that this device is in the category of device that are called computers and are used to perform many meta-physical (I call them meta-physical because I doubt their physical function) operations and command. Now my thoughts were starting to deviate, the Internet! Recall several occasions when I have sat in front of this system and browsed the internet, sending messages, pictures, multimedia files across to people miles away from me and funnily enough they receive I, chatting with different persons in chat rooms, and now am really beginning to doubt if they are all real. So how were these messages sent to the receivers, how were the operations performed? That is where my major ambiguity lay. Just by pressing a remote, you tell a television set to power on and off, change to a different channel. Just by pressing a remote you tell the engine of a car to start, just by tapping some keys on a keyboard you send messages across to many people living miles and very long distances in different geographical locations, Now my most confusing wonder arises, “are there no messenger who actually carry out this messages?” that I typed a “Z” button here and someone in USA sees it and replies me, I pick up my phone and dial a number and someone somewhere claiming to possess a device identified by that number picks up and we start talking, transferring voices over a little device, being aided by a card they call a micro sim card claiming it’s a microchip, or a radio device?. Is it just like that? Well we were made to believe that this mechanism are the effect of the wireless communication, well this is just a term they use to define it, but I believe there is more to that than the just “Wireless Communication”.
I wouldn’t want to go further, this is just an ambiguity troubling the mind of a young chap who really want to find answers, I thought presenting this question to other individuals and people who possibly could have more experience and knowledge than I so maybe help could actually come, because I still believe that sometimes two heads could actually be better than one.