Graduate Research webinar tackles Publication Ethics, Intellectual Property


The University of Santo Tomas Office for Graduate Research organized a webinar on Publication Ethics and Intellectual Property on March 20, 2021, with Prof. Emeritus Fortunato B. Sevilla III, Ph.D., who discussed “Ethics in Authorship & Publications,” and Assoc. Prof. Michael Jorge N. Peralta, Executive Assistant for Intellectual Property & Research/ITSO Manager, who discussed “Intellectual Property 101 and its ethics.”


UST Vice-Rector for Research and Innovation Prof. Maribel G. Nonato, Ph.D., stated in her message that, “the Graduate School’s purpose in career advancement and individual knowledge enhancement is geared towards personal development. Hence, selecting a mentor plays a vital role in pursuing a research endeavor because this decision will greatly influence the researcher’s work direction.”


Sevilla stressed three ethical issues during the webinar: authorship, honesty in publication, and redundant publication. He emphasized the importance of research work and its publication, a mandatory CHED requirement in graduate studies. The publication’s significance was further amplified when he mentioned the author’s important contribution to the body of knowledge that will continue to immortalize his name and the years to come, even to the point of outlasting his mortal existence.


He added that to develop research worthy of publication, the authors should have a significant intellectual contribution to the work, and they have the responsibility for the accuracy and integrity of all aspects of the work. One requirement of journals is the public disclosure of individual contributions. The last author is the most experienced contributor, a senior team member who contributed expertise and guidance and the guarantor of the research work’s integrity. Honesty in research is truthful and the accurate presentation of information on the data and results, the methods and procedures. Violation could lead to the distortion of scientific knowledge.


Sevilla presented some cases, such as data fabrication, and discussed plagiarism and self-plagiarism. The latter, he said is using one’s previous work or portion of the work and presenting it as a brand-new work, fragmented which is based on a single work that has been intentionally sub-divided into a series of small parts.
In his lecture, Peralta presented the various intellectual property rights that refer to any creation of the human mind expressed in the form of original ideas, expressions, products, and processes.


Peralta differentiated each IP right such as patents, utility models, trademarks or service marks, industrial designs, the layout of integrated circuits, trade secrets, geographical indications and copyrights, and related rights. He determined the ethics of Intellectual Property (IP) and shared the good habits of being ethical such as being familiar and abide by the law and university policies, ensure originality.

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