A gift of $135,000 to the ISU Office of Biotechnology will be used to help students understand the ethical, economic and legal dimensions of protecting scientific discoveries.

Pioneer Hi-Bred International provided the gift money to fund coursework and research relating to the field of intellectual property protection at Iowa State.

“The coursework and research is to help future plant breeders and researchers understand how to protect their discoveries, and to understand why it’s so important to have the ability to protect their discoveries,” said Pioneer spokeswoman Courtney Chabot Dreyer. “The reason Pioneer designated this gift is because we have a great relationship with ISU, and a good percentage of our employee base are actually ISU alumni.”

Protecting the intellectual property involved in scientific discovery is extremely important because, without protection, no one would have incentive to work, said GianCarlo Moschini, professor of economics.

“The protection of intellectual property involves legal measures and enforcement issues, as well as economic, social and ethical implications of different protection systems,” said Kristen Hessler, lecturer of biotechnology.

“We’re interested in providing a background to enable students to grasp this broad range of issues.”

Intellectual property rights are an integral part of doing business, Moschini said.

“Intellectual property rights are meant to provide incentive for research and development activities that are costly to achieve but can benefit the public at large,” he said.

If intellectual property rights were not respected, one scientist could invest all the time, work and money it takes to make a discovery, and then someone else could just copy the idea and sell it for a greater profit.

“People wonder, ‘Why do I have to pay so much for prescription drugs?’ for instance,” Chabot Dreyer said. “It’s not that actually producing that product costs so much money, but companies spend millions of dollars to sell that product. If they can’t be compensated, they can’t pay their researchers.”

Striking a balance between sharing new discoveries and rewarding scientists for their time and energy is always important, said Walter Fehr, professor of agronomy.

“Many of our students will have to deal with the issues in the workplace,” Fehr said. “The intellectual protection issues in agriculture are particularly important.”

The gift money will fund research on intellectual property protection, research on the impact of intellectual property rights protection in developing countries, interdisciplinary Web sites and lectures on economics of innovation and science policy.

A portion of the gift was taken from recent court cases in which Pioneer was able to successfully enforce its ability to protect its discoveries, Chabot Dreyer said.

“I’m delighted that Pioneer donated this money to support promising scholarship and new educational resources,” Hessler said. “Students from a number of fields will benefit from the educational projects.”