Mock Jury "Should Intellectual Property be Protected by the State?"

Yesterday, August 15th, the Mock Jury took place with the theme "Should intellectual property be protected by the State?". The leader of the event was the Associate II, Anna Luiza Guerzet, and the event had the presentation of two groups, Group A exposed arguments in favor of the theme and were part of it the associates Amanda Reginatto, Felipe Reuter and Silvia Baratella, while Group B exposed arguments against the theme and was composed by the associates Caroline Caliman, Pedro Henrique Perin and Talita Astori.

To start the Jury, the leader brought a brief introduction to the theme, according to a part of the briefing: "Intellectual property, roughly speaking, refers to the protection granted to human creations, such as texts, works of art, inventions, drawings, music, and computer programs. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the topic is back in the orbit, raising questions about vaccine patents to various degrees, such as: would patents be an incentive to innovation? Without this protection, would we have no vaccine today? In extreme cases, such as a pandemic, is it justifiable to break patents to speed up vaccine production? Should there be patents?".

After the introduction, the pro group started their presentation defending the protection of intellectual property by the state, followed by group B's presentation defending the non-protection of intellectual property by the state. After the presentations, each group had the opportunity to ask two questions of their opponents, in order to foster further debate, and the audience could ask questions of both groups.

Finally, the public voted for the winning group, and, with 58% of the votes, elected Group B, against the theme, as the winner of the Mock Jury. It is worth mentioning that the theme defined for each group, as well as their arguments, do not express the personal opinion of the participating members, but at the end of the Jury, each member was allowed to speak a little about their personal position, without interfering in the overall presentation.