#3 - Dario: The government should continue to grant patents

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[DetailOrient]

Hello,
Thank you for this forum!

I am surprised to see, that no where on the internet, has anyone asked about this question. I must admit it makes me feel a little uneasy, that no one else had trouble with it. My post continues on, with this acknowledged.

Specifically, I am stuck on the fact that if you asked this question to both Dario and Cynthia, they should both say no. I have no medical knowledge, but if every drug is granted a patent, why does Dario specifically mention "new"? I understand that "new" means every drug was at one point "new" so that means every drug "had" a patent, but what if a patent is only for a set amount of time? Should then a drug receive a patent even if it is not new? Let's say a company reinvents aspirin, and aspirin's patent has expired. Then it would get a patent again because it is a drug and it is not protected by anything. This is the kind of common sense knowledge that I would expect the LSAT to test. In what world does a patent typically last forever?

To take this a step further, Cynthia cannot agree that all drugs deserve patents, and Dario explicitly mentions that only "new" drugs deserve patents. So who believes that all drugs deserve patents?

This doesn't seem to be a "most strongly", in fact seems to be more of a must be true situation. If all my reasoning above is correct, then I am lead to believe this question is flawed. Please help me point out where my reasoning is incorrect, or how this question is not flawed.

Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Perhaps I have been studying too long and I should have taken a break before posting this, but I believe my logic is correct.

[Luke Haqq]

Hi DetailOrient!

I can certainly address this one to try to highlight this point of disagreement between the two speakers.

First, definitely don't worry about no one else posting about this specific question--it's only from the September 2018 test and this forum has been going for awhile, so there's simply been much more time for people to have posted questions about earlier tests.

To this specific question, it should be categorized as a "point at issue" problem (you mentioned that "This doesn't seem to be a 'most strongly,'" so it seemed important to clarify the question type). Point at issue problems might ask the test taker to identify where two speakers agree, or where they disagree. You are correct to apply the Agree/Disagree test, i.e., by looking to answer choices and asking whether each speaker would agree or disagree with the statement. In doing this and finding the point of agreement or disagreement, it's essential to stick exclusively to the information presented in the stimulus and not rely on any extraneous information that one might think is also true by virtue of "commonsense." The only "additional" information one might work with is inferences that can be made with certainty from the information, like taking the contrapositive or linking a chain of conditional reasoning, but that isn't new information; rather it is information that must be true based solely on the information given. The topic of patent expiration isn't explicitly discussed anywhere in the stimulus so isn't absolutely necessary or relevant toward the goal of ascertaining the right answer.

Here, Dario and Cynthia disagree over whether "patents should be granted for all drug compounds," found in answer choice (B). We can test this using the Agree/Disagree test:

Dario: Agrees ("The government should continue to grant patents for all new drug compounds")
Cynthia: Disagrees ("patents should be granted only for truly innovative drugs, not for minor variants of previously existing drugs")

Dario believes that patents should be granted "for all new drug compounds." By contrast, Cynthia believes that patents should be granted "only for truly innovative drugs, not for minor variants." If a company were seeking a patent for a minor variant of an existing drug, Dario would approve of granting a patent while Cynthia would disapprove.

[DetailOrient]

Thank you Luke! That definitely covered 98% of my question, but an annoying 2% still remains, my apologies if I am simply not getting it

My point about most strongly vs must be true was not the category it belongs in, I understand it is a point at issue, I was saying that the answer choice as stated on page 643 of the PowerScore Logical Reasoning bible "must be true" or is a "must be true" variant, as opposed to "most strongly supported" variant.

Seeing as it "must be true" Dario does NOT agree that "all drugs" deserve patents. He explicitly states all "new" drugs deserve patents (the rest is posted in my original post).

Can you help resolve how this fits the "must be true" scenario and not the "most reasonable" scenario? I do not see why "new" does not seem to not matter at all by either the patent side of the argument, or the semantic side of the argument.

[Jeremy Press]

Hi DetailOrient,

I get the disconnect you're describing, but for just a moment set aside the Must Be True versus Most Strongly Supported distinction.

The job here, as with all LSAT questions, is to choose the best answer. Answer choices A, C, D, and E definitely do not describe areas of disagreement. Each of those answers is either (1) a clear area of agreement between the speakers (answer choices A and E), or (2) an issue about which we clearly do not know one of the speakers' positions (I'd argue we don't know Cynthia's position on the absolute claim made in answer choice C, although the only other possibility is that she agrees with Dario; and we don't know Dario's position on answer choice D).

Is answer choice B the wording I was expecting (or you were expecting)? It's not. I was expecting to see "Patents should be available for all drug compounds." That would help circumvent some of the tension you're feeling with Dario's position. But can we legitimately read answer choice B in a way that fits Dario's argument? I'd say yes. "Patents (within the usual system of rules and requirements, including that the drug is new) should be granted for all drug compounds." Read that way, answer choice B is something Dario would agree to, and Cynthia would disagree with.

I know it's not satisfying to have to allow that there are multiple possible readings of an answer choice. But that's a flexibility that does sometimes become helpful in selecting the correct answer. If you've gotten rid of all five answers, but you have one that allows a reasonable reading that would be correct, then you've got to go with that one. That's answer choice B here.

Last little point: the reading I offer above is, I think, the best reading of answer choice B. Read answer choice B too literally, and it would be a completely absurd claim. Patents should be granted for all drug compounds? Like, literally every drug compound currently in existence? That would be absurd. We shouldn't rely on absurd readings of answers to eliminate them. If there's a non-absurd reading of an answer (like the one I offer above), go with it!

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[DetailOrient]

Jeremy,

This is exactly what I was looking for, 100% on board. Truly appreciate the explanation and thoughtfulness.