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 Copyright © 2005, 2007, 2008 Richard Stallman 本文最初于 2005 年六月 23 日以标题“Patent Absurdity”发表于英国卫报，并且针对当时被提出的“欧洲软件专利指导意见”。
 
-When politicians consider the question of software
-patents, they are usually voting blind; not being programmers, they
-don’t understand what software patents really do. They often think
-patents are similar to copyright law (“except for some details”)—which
-is not the case. For instance, when I publicly asked Patrick Devedjian,
-then Minister for Industry in France, how France would vote on the issue
-of software patents, Devedjian responded with an impassioned defense of
-copyright law, praising Victor Hugo for his role in the adoption of
-copyright. (The misleading term “intellectual property” promotes this
-confusion—one of the reasons it should never be used.)
-
 当政治家们考虑软件专利的问题的时候，他们通常会盲目地进行表达；由于他们不是程序员，他们并不了解软件专利真正在做什么。他们通常认为专利法与版权法类似（“除了少数细节以外”）——然而事实并非如此。例如，当我公开询问法国工业部长 Patrick Devedjian 关于法国将如何针对软件专利问题进行表决的时候，Devedjian 用一段对版权法的充满激情的辩护作为回应，并且盛赞维克多•雨果为了使版权这一概念为人类所接纳所做出的贡献。（“知识产权”这一带有误导性的短语加深了这种混淆——这是它永远不应该被使用的原因之一。）
 
-Those who imagine effects like those of copyright law cannot grasp the
-disastrous effects of software patents. We can use Victor Hugo as an
-example to illustrate the difference.
-
 那些认为软件专利将会产生与版权法类似效果的人们未能抓住并认清软件专利所可能带来的灾难性后果。我们可以以维克多•雨果为例，说明这二者的区别。
 
-A novel and a modern complex program have certain points in common: each
-one is large, and implements many ideas in combination. So let’s follow
-the analogy, and suppose that patent law had been applied to novels in
-the 1800s; suppose that states such as France had permitted the
-patenting of literary ideas. How would this have affected Victor Hugo’s
-writing? How would the effects of literary patents compare with the
-effects of literary copyright?
-
 一部小说和一个现代化复杂程序具有某些共同点：其一是大型化，以及在实现它的过程中需要将诸多设计思想融会贯通。于是，让我们沿着这个类比，假设专利法已经于 19 世纪被应用于小说；并且假设诸如法国这样的国家允许对文学创意进行专利保护。这将会对维克多•雨果的写作带来怎样的影响？文学专利带来的影响与文学版权带来的影响相比又会如何呢？
 
-Consider Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables. Since he wrote it, the
-copyright belonged only to him. He did not have to fear that some
-stranger could sue him for copyright infringement and win. That was
-impossible, because copyright covers only the details of a work of
-authorship, not the ideas embodied in them, and it only restricts
-copying. Hugo had not copied Les Misérables, so he was not in danger
-from copyright.
-
 考虑维克多•雨果的名著《悲惨世界》。由于他是作者，该书的版权属于他本人。他完全无需担心某些陌生人对他进行侵犯版权诉讼并且胜诉。那是不可能的，由于版权仅仅覆盖一篇作品的作者身份的细节，而非蕴含在作品中的思想创意，并且仅仅限制对作品的抄袭。维克多•雨果并未抄袭《悲惨世界》，所以他不会受到版权的威胁。
 
-Patents work differently. Patents cover ideas; each patent is a monopoly
-on practicing some idea, which is described in the patent itself. Here’s
-one example of a hypothetical literary patent:
-
 专利发挥作用的方式则与之不同。专利将会覆盖想法和灵感；每一项专利都是对实施某种想法的垄断，这是描述在专利本身的内容之中的。以下是一项假想的文学专利案例：
 
--   Claim 1: a communication process that represents in the mind of a
-    reader the concept of a character who has been in jail for a long
-    time and becomes bitter towards society and humankind.
-
 -   要求 1：一种在读者脑海中表达了这样一种概念的交流过程：某一角色在监狱中被监禁了很长时间，由此对社会和人性产生怨恨；
 
--   Claim 2: a communication process according to claim 1, wherein said
-    character subsequently finds moral redemption through the kindness
-    of another.
-
-    要求 2：一种基于要求 1 的交流过程：该角色随后在他人的关怀下得到了道德的救赎；
-
--   Claim 3: a communication process according to claims 1 and 2,
-    wherein said character changes his name during the story.
+-   要求 2：一种基于要求 1 的交流过程：该角色随后在他人的关怀下得到了道德的救赎；
 
-    要求 3：一种基于要求 1 和要求 2 的交流过程：该角色在故事发展过程中改名换姓。
-
-If such a patent had existed in 1862 when Les Misérables was published,
-the novel would have conflicted with all three claims, since all these
-things happened to Jean Valjean in the novel. Victor Hugo could have
-been sued, and if sued, he would have lost. The novel could have been
-prohibited—in effect, censored—by the patent holder.
+-   要求 3：一种基于要求 1 和要求 2 的交流过程：该角色在故事发展过程中改名换姓。
 
 如果这样一项专利存在于 1862 年《悲惨世界》发表之时，该著作将会与上述全部三项专利要求相冲突，由于所有这些事情都发生在小说中的 Jean Valjean 一个角色身上。维克多•雨果可能会因此被起诉，而且一旦被起诉，他将会败诉。这部小说可能会被禁止——事实上是被审查了——由专利拥有者。
 
-Now consider this hypothetical literary patent:
-
 现在考虑这样一项假想的文学专利：
 
--   Claim 1: a communication process that represents in the mind of a
-    reader the concept of a character who has been in jail for a long
-    time and subsequently changes his name.
-
 -   要求 1：一种在读者脑海中表达了这样一种概念的交流过程：一位角色在监狱中被监禁了很长时间，并且随后改名换姓。
 
-Les Misérables would have been prohibited by that patent too, because
-this description too fits the life story of Jean Valjean. And here’s
-another hypothetical patent:
-
 《悲惨世界》同样会被这项文学专利禁止，由于这一描述同样适用于 Jean Valjean 的人生故事。现在还有这样一项假想的文学专利：
 
--   Claim 1: a communication process that represents in the mind of a
-    reader the concept of a character who finds moral redemption and
-    then changes his name.
-
 -   要求 1：一种在读者脑海中表达了这样一种概念的交流过程：一位角色得到了道德的救赎并且随后改名换姓。
 
-Jean Valjean would have been forbidden by this patent too.
-
 Jean Valjean 同样会被这项专利所禁止。
 
-All three patents would cover, and prohibit, the life story of this one
-character. They overlap, but they do not precisely duplicate each other,
-so they could all be valid simultaneously; all three patent holders
-could have sued Victor Hugo. Any one of them could have prohibited
-publication of Les Misérables.
-
 所有这三项专利都将覆盖并且禁止这一角色的人生故事。它们相互重叠，但它们又都不是对其他专利的精确复制，因此它们可以共存；三项专利的持有人都可以起诉维克多•雨果，而他们中的任何一位都可以禁止《悲惨世界》。
 
-This patent also could have been violated:
-
 这项专利同样会被违反：
 
--   Claim 1: a communication process that presents a character whose
-    given name matches the last syllable of his family name.
-
 -   要求 1：一种交流过程表现了这样一位角色，其名字与其姓氏的最后一个音节相同。
 
-through the name “Jean Valjean,” but at least this patent would have
-been easy to avoid.
-
 这是通过角色的姓名“Jean Valjean”而产生的，然而至少这项专利是容易回避的。
 
-You might think that these ideas are so simple that no patent office
-would have issued them. We programmers are often amazed by the
-simplicity of the ideas that real software patents cover—for instance,
-the European Patent Office has issued a patent on the progress bar, and
-a patent on accepting payment via credit cards. These patents would be
-laughable if they were not so dangerous.
-
 您可能认为这些想法过于简单，以至于没有任何一家专利机构会去批准它们。我们作为程序员通常也会对于真实的软件专利所覆盖的想法是如此地简单而感到惊讶——例如欧洲版权厅（EPO）批准了一项关于进度条的专利，以及一项接受信用卡支付的专利。这些专利看起来将会显得非常可笑，如果它们并非如此阴险。
 
-Other aspects of Les Misérables could also have run afoul of patents.
-For instance, there could have been a patent on a fictionalized
-portrayal of the Battle of Waterloo, or a patent on using Parisian slang
-in fiction. Two more lawsuits. In fact, there is no limit to the number
-of different patents that might have been applicable for suing the
-author of a work such as Les Misérables. All the patent holders would
-say they deserved a reward for the literary progress that their patented
-ideas represent, but these obstacles would not promote progress in
-literature, they would only obstruct it.
-
 《悲惨世界》的其他方面也可能与专利产生冲突。例如，可能有关于对滑铁卢战役进行小说化描写的专利，或是关于在小说中使用巴黎俚语的专利。这将带来两场新的法律诉讼。事实上，并没有关于同时适用于对某一作品诸如《悲惨世界》的作者进行起诉的专利数量的限制，所有那些专利持有人都会宣称他们理应得到奖励，由于他们那些受专利保护的思想和灵感为文学发展所带来的贡献；然而，这些障碍并不能促进文学发展，反而只会阻碍文学的发展。
 
-However, a very broad patent could have made all these issues
-irrelevant. Imagine a patent with broad claims like these:
-
 然而，一项非常宽泛的专利将会使得以上这些问题失去意义。考虑一项带有宽泛要求的专利：
 
--   A communication process structured with narration that continues
-    through many pages.
-
 -   一种交流过程，带有连续数页的旁白结构；
 
--   A narration structure sometimes resembling a fugue or improvisation.
-   
 -   一种旁白结构，有时类似于赋格曲或者即兴作品；
 
--   Intrigue articulated around the confrontation of specific
-    characters, each in turn setting traps for the others.
-
 -   一种围绕特定角色之间的冲突所展开，随后又依次为其他人布下机关的阴谋；
 
--   Narration that presents many layers of society.
-
 -   一种表现了诸多社会阶层的旁白；
 
--   Narration that shows the wheels of hidden conspiracy.
-
 -   一种揭示了隐藏的阴谋的旁白。
 
-Who would the patent holders have been? They could have been other
-novelists, perhaps Dumas or Balzac, who had written such novels—but not
-necessarily. It isn’t required to write a program to patent a software
-idea, so if our hypothetical literary patents follow the real patent
-system, these patent holders would not have had to write novels, or
-stories, or anything—except patent applications. Patent parasite
-companies, businesses that produce nothing except threats and lawsuits,
-are booming nowadays.
-
 谁会是这些专利的持有人？可能是其他小说家，也许是大仲马或者巴尔扎克，由于他们写过这样的小说——但并不一定。要想为软件创意申请专利，其本人不需要进行编程，因此如果我们假想的文学专利符合真实的专利体系，其持有人不需要自己写小说，或者故事，或者任何东西——除了专利申请。那些除了威胁和法律诉讼，没有创造任何东西的专利寄生虫公司、企业正在日渐繁荣。
 
-Given these broad patents, Victor Hugo would not have reached the point
-of asking what patents might get him sued for using the character of
-Jean Valjean, because he could not even have considered writing a novel
-of this kind.
-
 如果有了这些宽泛的专利，维克多•雨果也许不会走到询问他所使用 Jean Valjean 这一角色将会受到哪些专利起诉这一步，由于他根本不会考虑去写这样一部小说。
 
-This analogy can help nonprogrammers see what software patents do.
-Software patents cover features, such as defining abbreviations in a
-word processor, or natural order recalculation in a spreadsheet. Patents
-cover algorithms that programs need to use. Patents cover aspects of
-file formats, such as Microsoft’s OOXML format. MPEG 2 video format is
-covered by 39 different US patents.
-
 这种类比可以让非程序员看清软件专利到底在做什么。软件专利覆盖了功能，例如在文字处理器中定义缩写，或是在电子表格中自然顺序的重新计算。专利也覆盖了程序设计所需要使用的算法。专利还覆盖了文件格式的方方面面，例如微软 Office 开放可扩展标记语言（OOXML），而 MPEG 2 视频格式被多达 39 项美国专利所覆盖。
 
-Just as one novel could run afoul of many different literary patents at
-once, one program can be prohibited by many different patents at once.
-It is so much work to identify all the patents that appear to apply to a
-large program that only one such study has been done. A 2004 study of
-Linux, the kernel of the GNU/Linux operating system, found 283 different
-US software patents that seemed to cover it. That is to say, each of
-these 283 different patents forbids some computational process found
-somewhere in the thousands of pages of source code of Linux. At the
-time, Linux was around 1 percent of the whole GNU/Linux system. How many
-patents might there be that a distributor of the whole system could be
-sued under?
-
 正如一部小说可以同时与许多不同的文学专利相冲突，一个程序也可以同时被许多项软件专利所禁止。想要鉴定所有可能与某个大型程序相关的专利的工作量如此之大，以至于只有一项这样的研究被实施。在 2004 年关于 Linux，即 GNU/Linux 操作系统的内核，的研究发现 283 项不同的美国软件专利可能对其进行覆盖。也就是说，这 283 项专利中的任何一项都可能禁止可以在 Linux 的数千页源代码中的某处找到的计算过程。与此同时，Linux 内核只占整个 GNU/Linux 操作系统的 1%。那么，这样一个系统的发布者又将会受到多少项专利的起诉呢？
 
-The way to prevent software patents from bollixing software development
-is simple: don’t authorize them. This ought to be easy, since most
-patent laws have provisions against software patents. They typically say
-that “software per se” cannot be patented. But patent offices around the
-world are trying to twist the words and issuing patents on the ideas
-implemented in programs. Unless this is blocked, the result will be to
-put all software developers in danger.
-
 要想阻止软件专利对软件发展造成的危害的方法很简单：不要批准它们。这应该是容易做到的，由于大部分专利法都拥有反对软件专利的条款。它们通常会说“软件本身”不能被专利保护。但是，全世界的版权机构正在试图曲解其涵义并且为程序设计中实现的想法和创意提供专利保护。除非我们能够阻止这一趋势，这种趋势将会将所有软件开发者置于险境。