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a common farming practice. Chen concluded that the activities
conducted by U.S. Agri on the land allocated to Utah I did not
constitute research and development and were merely farming
activities. The field tests were not designed or carried out for
the purpose of acquiring information about jojoba that was
unknown at the time. Chen found no substantial evidence that any
research was conducted.
Chen found that few, if any, scientific procedures were
established for the conduct of the proposed research. In Chen's
view, for the conclusion of a research project to be valid, the
experiment must be able to produce repeatable results, and Utah
I's research project produced no repeatable results. Chen's
report elaborated:
Experiments are planned to minimize the effects of
uncontrollable factors such as weather. In botany this
means that an experiment would have to be carried out
on the same age plants over several years to average
out the influence of the weather. Otherwise it would
not be possible to determine if results were due to the
experiment.
The Partnership's Project was planted without any
provision for the repetition of the experiments. The
land was planted at once.
Staggered planting of the land is necessary so that the same age
plants from different years could be compared and conclusions
could be formed about the effectiveness of the various
procedures. There is no evidence that staggered planting
occurred on Utah I.
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