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ANSWER KEY
Chapter 33 Science, Technology, and Law in the 21st Century
Opening Case Questions
1. Legal cases involving scientific issues involve complicated, highly specialized information that
5. Article I, Section 8, Clause 9 authorizes Congress to create “Tribunals inferior to the supreme
A QUESTION OF ETHICS-1
Dependency Theory: A Blueprint for Injustice or a Blessing in Disguise?
Special Directions to the Instructor: It is very difficult to determine in advance the wide variety
of answers that students will provide for these ethical questions, especially since the students are
given a choice as to which ethical theory to use (market value ethics, social contract ethics,
THE OPENING CASE Round 3 The Ebola Case: Does “peer pressure,”
reciprocity, international reputation, and good will actually work?
Special Directions to the Instructor: The questions asked in this exercise go far beyond the
material in the text, and will require additional research by the students. Therefore, an instructor
who wants to uses these questions as the basis for an out-of-class assignment (This used to be
A QUESTION OF ETHICS-2
Special Directions to the Instructor: Often teachers find that they cannot accurately predict the
types of answers that learners will produce when facing an ethical question. This problem become
even more acute when students are permitted to choose their own ethical theory (market value
CLASSIC CASES--Number 2--Act 4 JCVI and Patent Application US2007
026468: “To be or not to be . . . the G-10’s Action Plan”
Special Directions to the Instructor: The questions attached to this exercise are designed to elicit
well-thought out responses that represent the students’ beliefs on these matters. The questions have
no right or wrong answers but some of these questions do require an ethical analysis. For these
A QUESTION OF ETHICS-3
Special Directions to the Instructor: Figuring out how students will respond to ethical questions
is always a daunting task; however, this is especially true when students are limited to the use of a
single ethical theory (market value ethics, social contract ethics, utilitarianism, or rational ethics)
Questions for Review and Discussion
1. The Constitution grants the federal government the power to regulate science in a number of
ways. The first way is by explicitly naming that power in the Constitution. So, for instance, the power
of the government to grant the exclusive rights to intellectual property is expressly mentioned in Article
I of the Constitution, where the Framers gave Congress the authority to grant patents and copyrights in
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8. The clause reads that Congress has the power to “promote the Progress
3. The National Science Foundation was created by Congress in 1950 to support scientific research,
to stimulate the national economy, and to safeguard national security. The National Science
Foundation has an annual budget that runs close to $7 billion. A substantial
4. The National Institutes for Health operate under the auspices of the Public Health Service of the
Department of Health and Human Services. Their operational mission is to conduct research into all
aspects of human life and health and to apply that understanding to cure illnesses, to alleviate
5. The four major challenges facing the modern world are (1) the possibility of war, (2) the
7. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is responsible for the licensing, construction, and
operation of nuclear reactors. It is also responsible for regulating the possession, use, transportation,
8. The Clean Air Act is designed to limit pollution from vehicles and from stationary sources such
factories and manufacturing centers. The act authorizes the EPA to initiate regulations to limit air
pollution. The Clean Water Act, which was passed by Congress in 1972 as an amendment to the
Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, sets requirements for limiting the pollution of the nation’s
9. The ownership rights bestowed by the government on a person holding intellectual property
includes the right to give permission to use the property in exchange for some sort of consideration.
This consideration is usually referred to as a royalty. The power of the government to grant the
exclusive rights to intellectual property is expressly mentioned in Article I of the Constitution, where
10. The four main issues that must be considered in developing a science policy are (1) the necessity of
focusing on long range results; (2) the need to create partnerships among the government, business, and
Cases for Analysis
1. No. Federal pollution laws regulate the discharge of pollution whether or not the
2. A federal law like the Clean Air Act will preempt state and local law only in two cases: first, if
the state or local law clearly introduces a conflict between the state or local law and the federal law, or,
second, when the federal law specifically and expressly declares that Congress intends to preempt other
laws. In this case, neither situation applies. There is no conflict with federal law. In fact, the Village
3. The court will review the facts in the case and then examine the legislative history of the act
including a comparison to the Clean Air Act which has a similar citizen’s suit provision. The court
4. The appeals court should rule that no trade secrets were involved in this case. Semco clearly made
5. No. J&K Computer Systems, Inc., did its best to keep the accounts receivable program a secret.
The company did so by telling Parrish, Chlarson, and all other J&K employees that the program was a
secret. The program was labeled J&K’s property and it was not actually sold to the customers. Instead,
6. Yes. If a computer program is part of a large, more conventional process, the process itself will
not be unpatentable simply because of the program. In this case, the program simply figured the exact
7. No. A patent cannot be rejected based solely on the position that the invention involves an
algorithm. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that, “Since (the statute) expressly
includes processes as a category of inventions which may be patented and...further defines the word
‘processes’ as meaning ‘process, art, or method, and includes a new use of a known process, machine,
manufacture, composition of matter, or material,’ it follows that it is no ground for holding a claim is
8. No. The Copyright Act does protect motion pictures and other audiovisual displays. The courts
have extended this protection to include computer-generated audiovisual displays. Although the display
9. The question asks the learners to apply a case from an American Court system to an action in the
international arena. The learners should recognize (at the very least) that the application of an American
10. The Oregon case might be used as persuasive precedent to !ght government
enforced population control as imagined by Axel Madsen in Unisave, by using the
argument promoted by the Attorney General of Oregon who said that controlled
drugs could not be used for suicide because suicide is not a legitimate medical
END CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
