经济学人下载:克隆入侵网络公司

Fred Destin, a venture capitalist at Atlas Venture who has worked in both Europe and America, sees a double standard. “When something works in America”, he says, “eight companies immediately go after the same opportunity and venture capitalists fund them. But nobody calls them clones.” The fact that Groupon has been willing to work with the Samwers on building its business is another sign that some of the outrage  is overdone.

来自Atlas Venture的Fred Destin，作为一位在欧洲和美国都工作过的风险投资家，他发现了其中的双重标准。“当一些企业在美国兴起时”，他说道“8家相同的企业会立马获得相同的机会，得到风投们的支持。但是却没有人说他们是抄袭。”事实上， Groupon愿意同Samwer兄弟合作发展业务的意愿就给了我们一个信号，来自克隆企业的冲击太过分了。

Still, start-ups do need to think about the threat. Suing clones is hard, says David Goldstone, an intellectual-property  specialist at Goodwin Procter, an American law firm. Registering patents in many countries is both costly and time-consuming, and they may prove hard to enforce. A better bet is to out-innovate the opposition. Firms that can harness  powerful network effects, in which users encourage friends and family members to join them on a particular service, may be best placed to fight off the clones. Others will just have to draw their light sabres and hope that the Force is with them.

然而，创业企业们还是得考虑一下这些威胁。要想控告这些克隆企业很难，来自美国律师事务所的知识产权专家David Goldstone认为。在很多国家，注册专利费钱又费时，很难进行。一种更好的博弈就是在创新上超越对手。那些能够打败克隆者的，往往是能有效利用强大的网络影响，让用户们鼓励亲朋好友来使用它的某种特定服务的企业。而其它的企业则只能手执佩剑，希望自己也能拥有这样的力量。