LSAT 151 | Section 3 | Logical Reasoning: Q3

LR Question 3 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Dario: The government should continue to grant patents …

QUESTION TYPE: Point At Issue

ARGUMENTS: DARIO’S ARGUMENT: Drug patents should be granted for all new compounds because patents reward costly research and encourage innovation.

CYNTHIA’S ARGUMENT: Patents should only be granted for truly innovative drugs. Granting patents for minor tweaks pushes companies to focus on cheap variations instead of wholly new drugs.

ANALYSIS: Dario doesn’t address the difference between cheap variations and fully new drugs.

But both of them address what types of drugs should be granted patents. Dario thinks all new compounds should, while Cynthia thinks only truly innovative drugs should. That’s their disagreement.

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1. They agree on this. Dario explicitly says this, and Cynthia also says promoting innovation is important.
2. CORRECT. Dario says yes. Cynthia says no: exclude minor variants.
3. Both seem to agree with this. Dario mentions it’s costly to develop new drugs. Cynthia says it’s less expensive to tweak existing ones, so she accepts that it’s costly to develop new ones.
4. Cynthia thinks so, but Dario doesn’t address this, so we can’t conclude whether they disagree.
5. Both of them accept this; they just disagree about how broadly patents should be granted.