Logical Reasoning

PT151 · S3 · Q3 Dario: The government should continue

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Dario: The government should continue to grant patents for all new drug compounds.

Dario's Claims

1. The government should continue to grant patents for all new drug compounds.

2. Patents promote innovation by rewarding pharmaceutical companies for undertaking the costly research needed to develop new drugs.

Cynthia's Responses

1. Disagree, at least somewhat. Dario said we should grant patents for all new compounds, but it seems like Cynthia wants to grant patents only for truly innovative ones, not for minor variants of previously existing drugs.

2. No comment here. Her first sentence almost touches on this subject, but it seems more like she agrees that patents promote innovation and that there's a need to do so.

Goal

Since Cynthia seems to disagree with Dario's first explicit claim, we can hope that this is all the correct answer will be testing.

They would agree that truly innovative drugs should be granted patents.

But they disagree when it comes to minor variants of previously existing drugs: Cynthia would say patents shouldn't be granted for them (they're not truly innovative) whereas Dario would say they should be granted (all new drug compounds should be).

3.

Dario and Cynthia disagree over whether

  1. pharmaceutical companies should be rewarded

    Both Agree

    This answer doesn't sound like what we were looking for (which is whether minor variants of previously existing drugs should be granted patents). It seems like both parties agree that pharmaceutical companies should be rewarded for pursuing innovation. Cynthia would just say when it comes to these minor variants, they're not truly innovative, so they don't need patent protection.

    1% picked this

  2. Correct

    patents should be granted for

    Why this is right

    We knew that Cynthia disagree with Dario's first explicit claim, and this is Dario's first explicit claim! If this were later in the LR section, LSAC would probably try to disguise this answer more. Dario would obviously agree with this answer since he explicitly says this. Cynthia would disagree with this. She doesn't think all drug compounds should be granted patents, only those that are truly innovative.

    Skill tested: Agree/Disagree · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    95% picked this

  3. developing truly innovative drugs is

    Both Agree

    Both speakers seems to agree with this idea. Dario talks about the "costly research" to develop new drugs and and Cynthia says "it is much more expensive to develop a wholly new drug than to tweak an existing one".

    1% picked this

  4. pharmaceutical companies have an incentive

    Out of Scope Speaker 1

    Both people would presumably agree with this. They would disagree about whether patents should be granted for minor variants, but they would probably agree that pharmaceutical companies have an incentive to create minor variants.

    1% picked this

  5. drug patents can promote innovation

    Both Agree

    Dario says that "patents promote innovation" and Cynthia says, "Promoting innovation is important. For this reason, patents should be granted for X", which implies that she also thinks of patents as promoting innovation.

    2% picked this

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