美国专利制度无益于创新

The season of US election conventions is upon us. Politicians will issue sentimental proclamations about their faith in America. Meanwhile, from California, we have an object lesson in why that faith has been eroding. A supposed pillar of the nation’s capitalist vigour has been revealed in all its decadence.

美国大选前的党代会又拉开了序幕，政客们向天下述说对美国的信心，滔滔不绝，动人肺腑。与此同时，美国加州却让我们明明白白地理解到，为什么这种信心正在消褪。有一样东西本应是美国资本主义蓬勃发展背后的一座支柱，如今其放纵堕落却显露无遗。

That pillar is the US patent system, which has allowed Apple to extract $1bn from Samsung in compensation for alleged theft of intellectual property. According to nine randomly selected laymen– which is to say, a jury – Samsungmight as well be known as Samesung, since features of its smart phone suspiciously resemble the iPhone. Someone called Godzilla on the AppleInsider web forum summed up the verdict cheerfully: “Samsung proven to be the thieving snivelling wannabes that they are.

这座支柱就是美国的专利制度，正是它让苹果(Apple)得以从三星(Samsung)获取所谓“盗窃知识产权的10亿美元赔偿金。由9位随机抽选的外行人士、也就是所谓的陪审团认为，鉴于三星智能手机功能雷同iPhone，疑点重重，因此不妨称三星为“山寨星。在网络论坛AppleInsider上，名为“Godzilla的网友兴高采烈地将判决总结如下：“三星经过认定是小偷小摸、假装可怜的‘李鬼’——它本来就是。

If you surveyed convention delegates, you would find a majority in the Godzilla camp. Americans reasonably worship property rights and unreasonably extend this attitude to intellectual property rights, conflating “rival goods like homes and hamburgers, which cannot be shared costlessly, with “non-rival intellectual products that can be enjoyed simultaneously by all. Likewise, Americans worship innovation and presume that intellectual property rights always promote it. But this presumption is wrong.

如果你调查一下党代会代表，就会发现站在Godzilla一边的人不在少数。美国人崇拜财产权固然在情在理，但将这种态度延伸到知识产权，把住房、汉堡包这样无法无偿共享的“竞争性产品，与众人可以一起享用的“非竞争性知识产品混为一谈，那就毫无道理了。同样，美国人崇拜创新，并认定知识产权总能够推动创新。但这种想法是错误的。

The poster child for patents is the pharmaceuticals industry. But, as Richard Posner, a federal appeals court judge, has argued, what works in this sector is not necessarily appropriate in communications, software or elsewhere. Bringing a new drug to market is inordinately expensive, mainly because of the need for large clinical trials. Monopoly rights over new drugs provide a needed spur to invention. And because trials take as long as a decade, the 20-year exclusivity typically granted can mean only 10 years of monopoly profits.

说到专利，典型代表当属制药业。但正如联邦上诉法院法官理查德·波斯纳(Richard Posner)的观点，适用于制药业的，不一定适用于通信、软件或其他行业。由于需要进行大量临床试验，新药上市的成本高得惊人。因此，为新药授予专利权能够激励创新，是十分必要的。并且，因为临床试验可能延续10年之久，通常授予的20年专利权意味着只能保证10年的垄断利润。

The technology industry is different. No clinical trials are needed, so costs of development are lower and the case for monopoly weaker. Certainly, 20-year exclusivity cannot be justified. But as Michele Boldrin and David Levine observe in a new paper, the right policy for Silicon Valley might be to grant no patents whatsoever. Technology innovators are amply rewarded by the first-mover advantage. In the 16 months between the launch of the iPhone and the appearance of its first Android competitor, Apple shipped more than 5m units. Its share price outperformed the S and P 500 index by 20 percentage points.

技术行业则不同。无需临床试验使得开发成本相对较低，因此授予垄断经营权也就没有那么充足的理由。20年的专利权当然不合理。而米凯莱·博尔德林(Michele Boldrin)和大卫·莱文(David Levine)在一篇新论文里认为，对待硅谷的正确做法或许是不授予任何专利。技术先行者可以凭借先行之利赚得盆满钵溢。在iPhone上市和首款Android竞争产品面世之间的16个月里，苹果发货量达500万台，其股价表现高出标准普尔500指数(S and P 500) 20个百分点。

If the need for monopoly incentives in the tech industry is doubtful, the cost of granting them is clear. Whereas a drug patent covers one independent product, a technology patent typically covers a building block of a product, such as the look of the icons on a touch screen, to cite one of Apple’s complaints against Samsung. By patenting such building blocks, tech groups prevent rivals from using yesterday’s inventions to create tomorrow’s improved ones. Rather than spurring progress, patents can trip it up.

如果说在科技行业采取专利权激励措施的必要性尚且存疑的话，那么授予专利权的成本则是显而易见的。药品专利覆盖的是一款独立产品，但技术专利通常只涉及一款产品的一个组成部分，例如苹果在针对三星诉讼中提出的触屏图标外观。为这些组成部分申请专利以后，科技公司便能阻止竞争对手利用过去的发明制造出未来的改进品。专利不仅没有激励进步，反而会阻碍进步。

This problem has reached epidemic proportions in the tech industry. By one count, in 2005, 41 companies claimed 8,000 patents associated with 3G communications technology. Other standards, such as MP3 music, are similarly surrounded by thickets of competing claims.

这一问题在科技行业已然泛滥。一项统计显示，2005年有41家公司申请了8000项与3G通信技术有关的专利。与之相似，MP3音乐等其他领域的标准，也有数不清的专利申请在较劲。

When not patenting building blocks, tech groups patent chunks of territory, like cats marking out their land. Last month Apple secured a patent for a swath of products using touch screens with “four and five dimensional capability, whatever that may mean. Some patents are kept deliberately low-profile in hopes that deep-pocketed companies will violate them unknowingly, at which point patent holders pounce. Last year US companies spent about $29bn fending off raids from “non-practising entities, also known as patent trolls, litigators who own bundles of patents with no intention of using them to build products.

如果不为产品组成部分申请专利的话，科技公司便会通过专利将大片领域据为己有，就像猫咪占地为王一样。上个月，苹果成功地为一系列使用带“四维和五维功能（管它是什么意思）触屏的产品申请专利。有些公司在申请专利的时候故意保持低调，指望有钱的公司无意中侵权，然后伺机杀出。去年，美国公司花费290亿美元用来抵御“非经营实体的攻击——“非经营实体也被称为“专利钓饵公司(patent troll)，这些专门打专利官司的公司手中掌握着大批专利，却无意用它们制造产品。

Outside the tech industry, more madness reigns. As Keith Maskus notes in a forthcoming book, Private rights and public problems, Smucker’s, a food company, used to wield a patent covering a “method of making crustless peanut butter sandwiches. The National Football League has attempted to assert ownership over the phrase “Who Dat?, while a celebrated basketball coach once registered trademarks on the phrase “three-peat in anticipation of winning a third consecutive championship. (He did not, which served him right.) In a better world, the US Patent and Trademark Office would take care not to approve frivolous and overlapping applications. But its examiners are swamped.

科技行业之外更是乱象迭出。凯斯·马斯库斯(Keith Maskus)在即将出版的著作《私权与公共问题》(Private Rights and Public Problems)中提到，食品公司Smucker’s曾挥舞一项专利，它涉及“一种制作无硬皮花生酱三明治的方法。美国国家橄榄球联盟(National Football League)试图拿下短语“Who Dat?的所有权，而某知名篮球教练出于对连续第三个冠军的期待，还曾为“三连冠(three-peat)一词注册商标（结果他输了，活该）。在一个更美好的世界，美国专利商标局(Patent and Trademark Office)应当谨慎行事，不批准那些乱七八糟和范围重复的申请。但申请太多，审查员根本应接不暇。

The US has made modest efforts to rein in this excess. A law due to take effect next year will improve the funding of the patent office and reduce inconsistencies between the US approach and that of the rest of the world. But the US has a long way to go before attaining sanity. Its rules encourage vastly more patent applications than are filed in any other country. The Apple-Samsung verdict will doubtless be followed by a fresh burst of costly litigation as Apple presses its advantage and Samsung counter-attacks.

美国已经采取温和措施，以遏制这种泛滥势头。一部将于明年生效的法律将增加专利局拨款，并减少美国做法与世界其余地区的不一致之处。但距离恢复理性，美国还有很长的路要走。美国法规鼓励了专利申请，其申请数量远远超过世界其他国家。毫无疑问，苹果与三星之间的诉讼裁定之后，随着苹果扩大战果，三星发动反击，又将涌现一波烧钱的诉讼浪潮。

Some observers believe that the patent system should be abolished outright. But you don’t have to go that far to see that there are grounds for worry. Americans labour under an illusion that their lawyers’ paradise is good for innovation. They could hardly be more wrong.

一些观察人士认为，应该彻底废除专利制度。但用不着走这么极端，也能看到确实有担忧的理由。美国人受错误观点误导，以为专利这个律师的天堂可以促进创新，实乃大错特错。

The writer is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an FT contributing editor

本文作者是美国对外关系委员会(Council on Foreign Relations)高级研究员、英国《金融时报》特约撰稿人