经济学人下载:知识产权,发明之战

The most contentious point is a change to determine who is the rightful inventor. Instead of being the “first to invent”, the successful applicant would be the “first to file”, the standard used worldwide. Harmonising America’s rules with those in other countries would be a step towards greater co-operation and efficiency in patent examinations globally. Big companies like the proposal because it gives them more legal certainty that someone will not appear claiming they came up with the idea first. But inventors like Steve Perlman, the founder of WebTV and other firms, argue that it forces companies to file for patents before their inventions are fully developed. That, says Mr Perlman, would lead to yet more incremental improvements rather than big innovative steps and put a toll on America’s competitiveness.

最有争议的一点就是决定谁是合法发明人产生了变化。代替首位发明，而采用“首位注册”为成功申请人这一世界通行的标准，使美国的规则与其他国家的一致，是为全球专利检验加大合作与提高效率迈出的一步。大公司喜欢这一提议，因为在法律上他们有更大的把握，有些人不会出庭宣称自己首先想出创意。但是WebTV及多家公司的创始人史蒂夫·帕尔曼（Steve Perlman）这样的投资人辩称，这会迫使公司在发明完全开发出之前就注册专利。帕尔曼先生说，那会导致更多的数量增长，而非大的创新发展，从而对美国的竞争力造成伤害。

For the moment, though, companies are amassing ever larger arsenals of patents. Google, for one, was hit by eight lawsuits in April alone—more than in the first five years of its 13-year existence, says Mr Walker. “See how far we have strayed from the notion of innovation, that we need to acquire patents to fend off potential suits,” he says of the firm’s overall strategy. “That money could have been spent on engineers, to much more productive use.”

尽管如此，现在各公司增加的专利储备越来越多。就拿谷歌来说，四月就接受了八起诉讼——比其成立13年历史中中前五年的接受诉讼都多，沃克尔说。“来看看我们到底已偏离创新概念多远了。我们需要以获得专利来防范诉讼，”他谈到公司的总体战略时说。“那些钱本可以花在工程师身上，用在更高效的地方。”