Editorial
Precedent of ideas and models in science: Do we need a registry similar to patents? Andrew Moore Editor-in-Chief It doesn’t occur often, but I regularly experience a scientist who is annoyed that a peer has not cited his/her idea or model that is highly similar, or even identical, to one presented in the peer’s more recent article. And I think it’s fair to say that the problem is much larger than those few examples. Even if research and the according results themselves are not duplicated, the elaboration of a hypothesis or model can involve major intellectual effort and time. What’s it worth? The legal framework protecting intellectual property in science and technology is basically two-fold: patents and copyright. Patent law is largely to the satisfaction of the originator in that it protects his/her invention or development against being copied for material gain. In copyright law, however, the entity under protection is the written work, hence the legally prosecutable crime is misappropriation for reproduction elsewhere of all or part of the written work without credit to the originator(s) – i.e. literary plagiarism. I know that some scientists assume that the laws of plagiarism as applied to published works extend to misappropriation of ideas, but I’m afraid that’s not necessarily true: if written in substantially different words, an identical idea or model does not pass as plagiarism. And yet I believe that there’s justification for considering this an even greater problem than literary plagiarism. Here’s why: literary plagiarism is easier to detect, and ever more so in light of the developments in plagiarism-
detection software. Misappropriation of ideas or models is – I would argue – increasingly hard to detect because of the sheer – and rapidly increasing – mass of research publications these days; and because of the need to carefully read a paper to find such things. In this case it falls almost exclusively to the originating author to detect the occurrence: most other readers will probably accept the concepts expressed as novel because they tend to have less knowledge of the relevant literature. Which currency is at stake? In the case of patents it is potential financial earnings; in the case of misappropriation of scientific ideas it is citations and renown. So renown seems worthy of less legal support than mere money – not so in other areas of human activity. Is the only consequence in science a little scorn? And who is supposed to identify and champion eclipsed articles that truly establish precedent? Everyone in the process of publishing, from authors, through editorial, to readers? This is an unwieldy task, because it presupposes that we can, collectively, easily identify precedent. A similarity between patents and non-patentable ideas stemming from research is that anyone is free to reinvent something (even the wheel, unfortunately) – either intentionally or unintentionally – just as anyone is free to repeat previously done experiments, their interpretations and ideas elaborated therefrom. Publishing such things, however, parallels the case of filing a
Bioessays 36: 717, ß 2014 WILEY Periodicals, Inc.
patent because a significant reason for publishing is to establish precedent. But even when seen from the perspective of unrecognized precedent being innocent ignorance, what a waste of material and mental resources. And so to the word “waste”, for an idea or model that merely resides in a human head is a wasted one. Once put on paper it immediately has a value. And given that fact, I believe that it’s a greatly wasted opportunity not to register it in some codified way. The opportunity exists these days to collect and index all manner of information about an article. Summarizing data interpretation and subsequently elaborated hypotheses or models in a registry is possible. This would also make it easier for the innocents out there to avoid duplicating material or intellectual effort, and to re-direct their energies. If published, a notification associated with an article would alert readers to the existence of a similar idea earlier in the literature: no greater measure is necessary, but wouldn’t even that be a service to the community? Creating and using such a registry of hypotheses and models would definitely be challenging, but it might be worth a try.
Andrew Moore Editor-in-Chief
www.bioessays-journal.com
717
Precedent of ideas and models in science: Do we need a registry similar to patents? Andrew Moore Editor-in-Chief It doesn’t occur often, but I regularly experience a scientist who is annoyed that a peer has not cited his/her idea or model that is highly similar, or even identical, to one presented in the peer’s more recent article. And I think it’s fair to say that the problem is much larger than those few examples. Even if research and the according results themselves are not duplicated, the elaboration of a hypothesis or model can involve major intellectual effort and time. What’s it worth? The legal framework protecting intellectual property in science and technology is basically two-fold: patents and copyright. Patent law is largely to the satisfaction of the originator in that it protects his/her invention or development against being copied for material gain. In copyright law, however, the entity under protection is the written work, hence the legally prosecutable crime is misappropriation for reproduction elsewhere of all or part of the written work without credit to the originator(s) – i.e. literary plagiarism. I know that some scientists assume that the laws of plagiarism as applied to published works extend to misappropriation of ideas, but I’m afraid that’s not necessarily true: if written in substantially different words, an identical idea or model does not pass as plagiarism. And yet I believe that there’s justification for considering this an even greater problem than literary plagiarism. Here’s why: literary plagiarism is easier to detect, and ever more so in light of the developments in plagiarism-
detection software. Misappropriation of ideas or models is – I would argue – increasingly hard to detect because of the sheer – and rapidly increasing – mass of research publications these days; and because of the need to carefully read a paper to find such things. In this case it falls almost exclusively to the originating author to detect the occurrence: most other readers will probably accept the concepts expressed as novel because they tend to have less knowledge of the relevant literature. Which currency is at stake? In the case of patents it is potential financial earnings; in the case of misappropriation of scientific ideas it is citations and renown. So renown seems worthy of less legal support than mere money – not so in other areas of human activity. Is the only consequence in science a little scorn? And who is supposed to identify and champion eclipsed articles that truly establish precedent? Everyone in the process of publishing, from authors, through editorial, to readers? This is an unwieldy task, because it presupposes that we can, collectively, easily identify precedent. A similarity between patents and non-patentable ideas stemming from research is that anyone is free to reinvent something (even the wheel, unfortunately) – either intentionally or unintentionally – just as anyone is free to repeat previously done experiments, their interpretations and ideas elaborated therefrom. Publishing such things, however, parallels the case of filing a
Bioessays 36: 717, ß 2014 WILEY Periodicals, Inc.
patent because a significant reason for publishing is to establish precedent. But even when seen from the perspective of unrecognized precedent being innocent ignorance, what a waste of material and mental resources. And so to the word “waste”, for an idea or model that merely resides in a human head is a wasted one. Once put on paper it immediately has a value. And given that fact, I believe that it’s a greatly wasted opportunity not to register it in some codified way. The opportunity exists these days to collect and index all manner of information about an article. Summarizing data interpretation and subsequently elaborated hypotheses or models in a registry is possible. This would also make it easier for the innocents out there to avoid duplicating material or intellectual effort, and to re-direct their energies. If published, a notification associated with an article would alert readers to the existence of a similar idea earlier in the literature: no greater measure is necessary, but wouldn’t even that be a service to the community? Creating and using such a registry of hypotheses and models would definitely be challenging, but it might be worth a try.
Andrew Moore Editor-in-Chief
www.bioessays-journal.com
717
