OFFICE MEMORANDUM • STANFORD UNIVERSITY • OFFICE MEMORANDUM • STANFORD UNIVERSITY • OFFICE MEMORANDUM 
To 
DatE: June 4, 1976 
Those Interested in Recombinant DNA 
From 
Robert M. Rosenzweig ' 
Vice President for Public Affairs 
Subject: Thoughts on the Patent Question 
The proposal to seek patent protection for discoveries arising 3 : 
from research on recombining DNA has aroused at Stanford a range of 2 
emotions that includes enthusiasm, dismay, and most of the stops z 
in between. That this is so is not surprising, for Stanford scientists^ 
have been centrally involved in the research that produced the ability 2 
to recombine DNA elements, in the public policy debate over the kinds • 
of research that might safely be allowed to proceed and the safeguards ^ 
for any such research, and in the "invention" for which patent protec- > 
tion is being sought. In a situation in which different points of £ 
view exist among individuals, and in which some individuals are 2 
ambivalent or conflicted, it is especially important to define the 
issues clearly. Dispute, if there is to be any, should be over real § 
differences about real issues. The purpose of this memorandum is to < 
state the issues as clearly as I am able to do it. I hope that reader s£ 
of it will help, by their comments, to add still greater clarity to 3 
the discussion. 
The Effect of Patents on the Conduct of Science 
It is probably the case that most scholars have had a good 
deal more experience with the use of copyrights than with 
the use of patents. However, both devices are expressions 
of a single purpose and are in fact authorized in a single 
section of the Constitution: 
[The Congress shall have power] . . . 
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, 
by securing for limited times to authors and inventors 
the exclusive right to their respective writings and 
discoveries; ... (Article I, Section 8) 
An elaborate structure of copyrights, patents, licenses, 
litigation, special courts, and so forth, has grown from 
that spare statement. I cite it because it seems to me 
useful to recall that the purpose of the Founders (and the 
English law on which they built) in providing for patents, 
was indistinguishable from one of the central purposes of 
the university, "to promote the progress of science and the 
useful arts." 
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It is, perhaps, ironic that a major theme in the present 
debate is the fear that if scientists are forced to think 
about the patentability of their work, there will be an 
unhealthy increase in secrecy and that the progress of science^ 
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