## 软件专利的威胁

> 本文是 Richard Stallman 于 2009 年十月 8 日在位于新西兰惠灵顿的惠灵顿维多利亚大学所做的演讲的未编辑抄本。

著作权所有 (C) 2009, 2010, 2014 Richard Stallman 此抄本最初于 2009 年发表于 <http://gnu.org>。

我所做的最出名的事情是发起自由软件运动以及领导开发 GNU 操作系统——尽管大部分使用它的人们错误地认为它是 Linux，并且认为它是由其他人在十年之后发起的。但是我今天并不打算谈论与之相关的任何话题。我在此是想讲述一种对所有的软件开发者、发布者和用户的合法威胁：专利的威胁——不论是对于计算思想、计算技术还是对于您所能在计算机上进行的任何事情的想法。

现在，为了认识这个问题，您需要认识到的最重要的事情是，专利法与版权法没有任何关系——它们是完全不同的。对于您所了解的关于它们之一的任何东西，您都可以确认它们并不适用于另一方。

于是，举个例子，只要某人做出关于“知识产权”的论述，这就是在散播一种混淆。由于它不仅仅将专利法与版权法混为一谈，并且还混入了至少数十种其他东西。它们都是不同的，其结果是，任何大意是关于“知识产权”的论述都是一种混淆——要么做出这种论述的人本身处于混乱不清的状态，要么此人正在试图使其他人混乱不清。但不论何种情况，不论是无意的还是恶意的，这都是一种混淆。

您必须拒绝接受任何使用那个短语的论述，才能使自己不被混淆。要想对于这些法律中的任何一个做出深刻的评价，并且进行清晰的思考，首先只有将其同其他东西区分开来，并且专注于讨论或思考某一特别的法律。这样，我们才能了解它真正在做什么，并且对其得出结论。因此，我在此将会讨论专利法，以及在那些允许专利法对软件进行限制的国家发生了什么。

那么，专利到底在做什么？一项专利是一种具体的、由政府批准的对于某一种想法的使用权的垄断。在专利中有一部分称为权利要求，它精确地描述了您所不被允许做的事情（尽管它们被书写为一种您很可能不能理解的形式）。要想获知那些禁令的真实涵义是一种费力的抗争，它们可能拥有很多页小字印刷的繁琐细则。

专利的有效期一般会持续 20 年，这对于我们的领域是一段相当长的时间。20 年前还没有万维网——海量的计算机应用进入了一个在 20 年前甚至不可能被提出的领域。当然，人们在其上做的每一件事对于 20 年前都是新奇的——至少在某些方面是新奇的。因此，如果专利被申请了，我们会被禁止做所有这些事情，并且在那些蠢到拥有这样的政策的国家，我们会被禁止做所有这些事情。

在大多数时间，当人们描述专利体系的功能时，他们会表现出对该体系的既定的兴趣。他们可能是专利律师，或者他们在专利局工作，或者他们在某家行业大鳄的专利部门工作。总之，他们想让您喜欢这种专利体系。

《经济学人》杂志曾将专利系统称为“一种耗时的撞大运的事”。如果您曾经见过关于彩票的宣传，您将理解它如何运作：它们反复强调微不足道的获胜几率，并且从不提及压倒性的失败几率。通过如此做，它们有意地、系统性地展示了关于什么事情将会发生在您身上的带有偏向性的场景，而它们事实上却又并没有针对任何特定的事实撒谎。

对于专利系统的宣传与之类似：他们描述的是您走在街上，口袋里装着一纸专利证书的时候如何如何——或者先说获得一项专利将会如何如何，然后您在口袋里装有一纸专利证书的时候如何如何，通常您可以从口袋里拿出那张专利证书，用它指着别人说：“把你的钱给我。”

为了补偿它们的偏见，我将会从另一方面进行描述——即受害者的角度——那些想要开发、发布或者运行软件的人们将会如何如何。您不得不担心有朝一日，某人可能会向您走来，拿出一张专利证书指着您，说道：“把你的钱给我。”

如果您想要在一个允许软件专利的国家开发软件，并且您想要配合专利法，您将必须去做哪些事呢？

You could try to make a list of all the ideas that one might be able to
find in the program that you’re about to write, aside from the fact that
you don’t know that when you start writing the program. \[But\] even
after you finish writing the program you wouldn’t be able to make such a
list.

您可以尝试列出一项关于您想要编写的程序中可能找到的各种想法和创意的清单。除此之外，您还需要面对这样的现实：您不知道您何时才能开始编写这个程序。但是，即使您已经完成编写该程序，您也不可能列出这样一份清单。

造成这种情况的原因是……在您以某种特定的方式想出一种计划的过程中，您已经有了一种应用于您的设计的思想上的架构。正因为如此，它将阻止您去认识那些其他人可能用于理解同一程序的其他架构——因为您并不是首次想到它的；您已经在脑海中使用某种架构设计出了它。其他人在首次见到它的时候可能看到的是另一种架构，它涉及不同的想法和创意，并且对你来说看到那些其他的想法和创意是什么是困难的。但是尽管如此，它们在您的程序中实现了，因此相关的专利将会禁止您的程序，如果那些想法是受专利保护的。

For instance, suppose there were graphical-idea patents and you wanted
to draw a square. Well, you would realize that if there was a patent on
a bottom edge, it would prohibit your square. You could put “bottom
edge” on the list of all ideas implemented in your drawing. But you
might not realize that somebody else with a patent on bottom corners
could sue you easily also, because he could take your drawing and turn
it by 45 degrees. And now your square is like this, and it has a bottom
corner.

例如，假设有一些关于图形创意的专利，并且您想要绘制一个正方形。当然，您可能会意识到如果有一项关于“底边”的专利，它将阻止您绘制正方形。您可以将“底边”置于您的绘画中所不能实现的所有想法的黑名单中。但是，您也许不会预料到，如果某人持有一项“底角”专利，他仍然可以轻松地起诉您，由于他可以拿到您的绘画并且将其旋转 45 度。此时您的正方形看起来就有了底角。

因此，您不可能列出一项想法的清单，其中这些想法一旦受到专利保护就将禁止您的程序。

您可能会尝试去做的是试图找出所有可能在您的程序中使用的受专利保护的思想。然而，事实上您不可能做到这一点，由于专利申请在至少 18 个月内保密；其结果是专利局可以在这段时间内考虑是否批准一项专利，并且它们不会告知您。这不仅仅是学术上、理论上的可能性。

例如，一款名为 Compress 的程序于 1984 年被编写出来，这是一款使用数据压缩算法来压缩文件的软件，而当时并没有关于那种文件压缩算法的专利。该软件的作者通过某家期刊上的一篇文章学到了该算法。当时，我们认为计算机科学期刊的目的应该是发布算法以供人们使用。

此人编写并且发布了该软件，并且该算法于 1985 年获得专利。但是该专利拥有者非常精明，并不急于通告人们立即停止使用它。其专利拥有者看到了这一点：让每个人将自己的坟墓挖得更深一些。几年之后，该专利拥有者开始威胁人们，很显然，我们不能再使用 Compress，于是我请求人们推荐我们可用于压缩文件的其他算法。

而后，有人在来信中说到：“我开发出了另一种效果更佳的数据压缩算法，并且写出了一段程序，我愿意把它送给您。”于是，我们做好了发布它的准备，就在它将要被发布的一周之前，我特意阅读了《纽约时报》周刊的专利专栏，我很少去阅读它——可能每年只看几次——但幸运的是，我看到了某人已经得到了一项关于“发明一种用于数据压缩的新方法”的专利。于是我说我们最好看看这项专利。确实，它覆盖了我们马上就要发布的软件。但是事情还有可能变得更坏：这项专利可以再晚一年被批准，也许是两年、三年，或者五年。

尽管如此，还是有其他人带来了又一种更好的压缩算法，这种压缩算法被用于 gzip 软件中，而几乎每一个想要压缩文件的用户都转向了 gzip，这看起来像是一个完美的结局。但是，您随后将会知道，并非整个过程都是这样美好。

因此，您不能获知有关正在被评估的专利的任何信息，即使当它们粉墨登场的时候可能会禁止您的工作，但您可以获知已被批准的专利的信息。它们会由专利局公布，问题是您不可能全部阅读它们，由于它们实在是太多了。

在美国，我相信总共有数十万的软件专利；对它们保持跟踪是一项庞杂的工作。因此您将不得不随时查询相关专利。您将会找到大量相关专利，但您必然不可能找到它们的全部。

For instance, in the 80s and 90s, there was a patent on “natural order
recalculation” in spreadsheets. Somebody once asked me for a copy of it,
so I looked in our computer file which lists the patent numbers. And
then I pulled out the drawer to get the paper copy of this patent and
xeroxed it and sent it to him. And when he got it, he said, “I think you
sent me the wrong patent. This is something about compilers.” So I
thought maybe our file has the wrong number in it. I looked in it again,
and sure enough it said, “A method for compiling formulas into object
code.” So I started to read it to see if it was indeed the wrong patent.
I read the claims, and sure enough it was the natural order
recalculation patent, but it didn’t use those terms. It didn’t use the
term “spreadsheet.” In fact, what the patent prohibited was dozens of
different ways of implementing topological sort—all the ways they could
think of. But I don’t think it used the term “topological sort.”

例如，在 20 世纪 80 到 90 年代，有一项关于在电子表格“重新计算自然级数”的专利。曾经有人向我索取一份它的副本，于是我在自己的列出了专利号的计算机文件中进行查询，并且复印了一份发送给对方。对方收到后说：“我想您发给我的不是我想要的专利。这项专利是关于编译器的。”于是我想可能是我们的文件中记录了错误的专利号。我再次查询它，并且确信它所描述的是“一种将公式编译到对象代码中的方法”。然后我开始仔细阅读它，以便确认它是否真的并非我们想找的专利。我读到了它的权利要求，发现它确实是关于重新计算自然级数的专利，但它并未使用这些短语。它没有使用“电子表格”这一短语。事实上，该专利禁止了数十种用于实现拓扑排序的方法——他们所能想到的所有方法。但是我并不认为它用到了“拓扑排序”这一短语。

因此，如果您正在编写一份电子表格并且试图通过搜索查询相关专利，您可能会找到大量相关专利。但是，您并不会发现这样一条专利，直到某一天您对某人说：“哦，我正在设计一份电子表格。”而对方说：“哦，你知道其他那些正在使电子表格软件受到起诉的公司吗？”然后您才会知道这一点。

您不能通过搜索找出全部相关专利，但可以找到它们中的许多。然后您必须获知它们是什么意思，这是很困难的，由于专利是用冗长并且含混不清的法律语言书写的，很难理解其真正涵义。因此您将不得不花费大量时间和钱财向律师解释您想要做什么，以便从律师那里获知您是否被允许如此做。

即使是那些专利持有人，通常也不能完全认出他们的专利到底是什么意思。例如，Paul Heckel 曾经发布了一个用于在小屏幕上显示大量数据的程序，基于此程序中的一些思想，此人获得了两项专利。

我曾经试图找出一种简单的方式以描述其中一项专利的要求 1 所覆盖的内容。然而，我发现我未能找到一种比其专利原文更简单的解释方式；而对于那条陈述，我不能试图一次性将其全部装入我的脑中，不论我多么努力地进行尝试。

然而，Heckel 也未能抓住其本质，由于当他看到 HyperCard 这一概念时，他所能发现的是这与他的程序全然不似。他并没有想到他的专利书写方式将会禁止 HyperCard；但是他的律师却有这种想法，于是他威胁苹果。然后他威胁了苹果的用户，最终，苹果与此人达成了一项不为外人所知的和解方案，因此我们不知谁是真正赢家。因此，这一例子足以说明任何人想要获知某项专利是否禁止某一事情到底有多么困难。

事实上，我之前曾进行过这篇演讲，并且 Heckel 也是听众之一。当演讲进行到这个节点之时，他跳了起来，说道：“这不是真的，我只是不知道我自己的专利所保护的范围。”我于是说道：“这正是我所讲的。”此时他坐下了，而这正是我被 Heckel 所诘问的经历的结束。如果我当时说“不”，他很可能找到某种方式与我辩论。

尽管如此，在与律师进行过一段冗长并且昂贵的交谈之后，律师很可能会给您这样的解答：

> 如果您做了这个领域中的一些事情，您几乎肯定会输掉一场诉讼；如果您做了这个领域中的一些事情，您有相当大的几率输掉一场诉讼；如果您真的想要确保安全，您必须避免涉足这个领域。但是，任何诉讼的结果都存在相当大的变数。

现在，您已经了解从事商业活动的清晰、可预测的规则。接下来，您实际上将会如何做？为了应对任何专利可能带来的问题，您有三件事可以做。其一是回避专利；其二是获得它的使用许可；其三是使其作废。接下来，我将会逐条讨论。

其一，回避该项专利是有可能的，也就是说，不要实施那些被它禁止了的东西。当然，如果很难区分什么才是它所禁止的，可能也很难说出哪些方式足以回避它。

两年以前，柯达起诉 Sun，由于对方使用了一项与面向对象程序设计有关的专利，而 Sun 认为这并未侵犯该项专利。但最终法庭判决这构成专利侵犯；然而，其他人在看到那项专利之后，都难以得出有关该判决公正与否的哪怕是最微弱的想法。没有人能够区分什么才是那项专利所覆盖或者没有覆盖的，但是 Sun 不得不支付数亿美元的赔款，由于它侵犯了一条完全不可理解的法律。

有时，您能够区分什么才是您需要回避的；有时您需要回避的是一种算法。

例如，我曾经见过某项专利是关于快速傅里叶变换（FFT）相关的东西，但它的运行速度快两倍。当然，如果普通的 FFT 对于您的应用足够快，那么这将成为回避这项专利的简单方式。并且这将适用于大多数情况。而您一旦试图做一些一直需要运行 FFT 的事情，并且那种快速算法勉强足够快，那么您将不能回避它，尽管您可以等上几年以得到一台更快的计算机。不过这毕竟是较为罕见的情形。对于大多数情形，那项专利还是容易回避的。

另一方面，一项关于某种算法的专利也许是不可能回避的。考虑诸如 LZW 数据压缩算法。如我之前所述，我们发现了一种更好的数据压缩算法，并且每个需要压缩文件的用户都转向了用到更好算法的 gzip 程序。其原因是，如果您只是需要压缩某些文件并且在以后进行解压，您可以告知人们使用该程序进行解压；然后您可以使用基于任何算法的任何程序，并且您只需关心该程序工作得如何。

但是 LZW 也被应用于其他事情；例如 PostScript 语言指定了用于 LZW 压缩和 LZW 解压的操作符。拥有其他更好的算法并没有意义，由于这只会产生一种新的数据格式，而它们将是不可互操作的。如果您使用 gzip 算法对其进行压缩，您将不能使用 LZW 对其解压。因此不论您的其他算法多么好，不论它是什么，它都不能允许您根据该算法的规范实施 PostScript。

But I noticed that users rarely ask their printers to compress things.
Generally the only thing they want their printers to do is to
uncompress; and I also noticed that both of the patents on the LZW
algorithm were written in such a way that if your system can only
uncompress, it’s not forbidden. These patents were written so that they
covered compression, and they had other claims covering both compression
and uncompression; but there was no claim covering only uncompression.
So I realized that if we implement only the uncompression for LZW, we
would be safe. And although it would not satisfy the specification, it
would please the users sufficiently; it would do what they actually
needed. So that’s how we barely squeaked by avoiding the two patents.

但是，我注意到用户极少会要求他们的打印机去压缩什么东西。一般情况下，他们需要打印机去做的只是解压；而我也注意到，关于 LZW 算法的两项专利都是以这种方式书写，如果您的系统只能进行解压，这并未被禁止。这些专利被这样书写使得它们覆盖了数据压缩，并且它们拥有同时覆盖了压缩和解压的其他权利要求；但是并没有仅仅覆盖了解压的权利要求。于是我意识到，如果我们仅仅实施 LZW 解压，我们将会是安全的。尽管这样做并不足以满足标准规范，这已经足以取悦用户；它将会只做那些它们实际上所需要去做的事情。于是这就是我们如何勉强侥幸地回避了那两项专利的经历。

Now there is GIF format, for images. That uses the LZW algorithm also.
It didn’t take long for people to define another image format, called
PNG, which stands for “PNG’s Not GIF.” I think it uses the gzip
algorithm. And we started saying to people, “Don’t use GIF format, it’s
dangerous. Switch to PNG.” And the users said, “Well, maybe some day,
but the browsers don’t implement it yet,” and the browser developers
said, “We may implement it someday, but there’s not much demand from
users.”

现在，有一种用于图像的 GIF 格式，它也使用了 LZW 算法用于压缩。人们并没有花费太长时间就定义出了另一种图像格式，它称为 PNG，其涵义为 PNG 不是 GIF（PNG's Not GIF）。我认为它使用了 gzip 压缩算法。并且我们开始对人们说：“不要使用 GIF，它是危险的。转向使用 PNG。”而用户则会说：“好吧，也许某天我们会这样做，但是浏览器还没有实施它。”并且浏览器开发者也会说：“我们也许会在某一天实施它，但是现在还没有太多的用户需求。”

Well, it’s pretty obvious what’s going on—GIF was a de facto standard.
In effect, asking people to switch to a different format, instead of
their de facto standard, is like asking everyone in New Zealand to speak
Hungarian. People will say, “Well, yeah, I’ll learn to speak it after
everyone else does.” And so we never succeeded in asking people to stop
using GIF, even though one of those patent holders was going around to
operators of web sites, threatening to sue them unless they could prove
that all of the GIFs on the site were made with authorized, licensed
software.

当然，事情的发展状况是非常明显的—— GIF 是一种事实上的标准。实际上，要求人们从他们所习惯使用的事实标准格式转向另一种不同的格式，就如同试图要求每位新西兰人改说匈牙利语。人们会说：“好吧，也许某一天我会去学着说匈牙利语，只要所有其他人都这样做。”于是我们对于要求人们停止使用 GIF 的努力从未成功过。即使其专利持有者之一已经开始将矛头对准网站操作者，并且威胁起诉他们，除非他们能证明其网站的所有 GIF 图片都是使用经过认证和授权许可的软件制作的。

So GIF was a dangerous trap for a large part of our community. We
thought we had an alternative to GIF format, namely JPEG, but then
somebody said, “I was just looking through my portfolio of patents”—I
think it was somebody that just bought patents and used them to threaten
people—and he said, “and I found that one of them covers JPEG format.”

于是，GIF 对于我们社区的大部分人来说都是危险的陷阱。我们认为我们有一种 GIF 格式的替代品，称为 JPEG，但是其后就有人说：“我刚刚翻阅了我的专利公文包。”——我认为这是某些刚刚买了某项专利并且立即将其用于威胁众人的人——并且他接着说：“然后我就发现其中一项专利覆盖了 JPEG 格式。”

Well, JPEG was not a de facto standard, it’s an official standard,
issued by a standards committee; and the committee had a lawyer too.
Their lawyer said he didn’t think that this patent actually covered JPEG
format.

当然，JPEG 格式并非事实上的标准，它只是一种官方标准，由一个标准委员会颁布；该委员会也有一位律师。他们的律师声称他并不认为那项专利真正覆盖了 JPEG 格式。

So who’s right? Well, this patent holder sued a bunch of companies, and
if there was a decision, it would have said who was right. But I haven’t
heard about a decision; I’m not sure if there ever was one. I think they
settled, and the settlement is almost certainly secret, which means that
it didn’t tell us anything about who’s right.

那么，究竟谁是正确的？这位专利持有人起诉了多家公司，并且如果有这样的一种结论，它将会说出谁是正确的。但是，我未曾听说过有这样一种定论；我不确定是否真的有定论，我认为他们达成了某种和解，而最终的解决方案几乎肯定是绝密的，这意味着它不能向我们传达关于谁对谁错的任何信息。

These are fairly lightweight cases: one patent on JPEG, two patents on
the LZW algorithm used in GIF. Now you might wonder how come there are
two patents on the same algorithm? It’s not supposed to happen, but it
did. And the reason is that the patent examiners can’t possibly take the
time to study every pair of things they might need to study and compare,
because they’re not allowed to take that much time. And because
algorithms are just mathematics, there’s no way you can narrow down
which applications and patents you need to compare.

也有相对轻量级的案例：例如关于 JPEG 的一项专利，或者关于 GIF 所使用的 LZW 算法的两项专利。现在，您可能想知道为何关于同一种算法会有两项专利。这本不应该发生，但却就是发生了。其原因是专利审查者事实上不可能拿出时间来研究他们也许需要仔细研究和比对的每一对概念，这是由于他们不可能拿出那么长的时间。并且由于算法实际上就是数学，您不可能对那些您需要比较的应用和专利的适用范围进行缩窄。

You see, in physical engineering fields, they can use the physical
nature of what’s going on to narrow things down. For instance, in
chemical engineering, they can say, “What are the substances going in?
What are the substances coming out?” If two different \[patent\]
applications are different in that way, then they’re not the same
process so you don’t need to worry. But the same math can be represented
in ways that can look very different, and until you study them both
together, you don’t realize they’re talking about the same thing. And,
because of this, it’s quite common to see the same thing get patented
multiple times \[in software\].

您将会看到，在物理工程领域，他们可以使用将要发生的事物的物理本性来缩窄其适用范围。例如，在化学工程中，他们可以说：“输入的物质是什么，输出的物质又是什么。”如果两项专利申请是以这种形式相互区别的，那么它们并不是指的同一过程，因此您不必为此担心。但是，同一种数学原理可以被表现为看起来非常不同的形式，并且即使您将它们放在一起研究，您仍然不能意识到它们描述的是同样的东西。并且由于这个原因，在软件领域发现同一事物被多次赋予专利是非常普通的事情。

Remember that program that was killed by a patent before we released it?
Well, that algorithm got patented twice also. In one little field we’ve
seen it happen in two cases that we ran into—the same algorithm being
patented twice. Well, I think my explanation tells you why that happens.

您还记得那个在我们准备发布之前被一项专利扼杀的程序吗？那种算法也被赋予了两次专利。在一个小的领域中，我们已经看到这种情况发生在我们偶然遇到的两起案例中——同一种算法被赋予两次专利。好吧，我想我的解释已经让您明白这为什么会发生。

But one or two patents is a lightweight case. What about MPEG2, the
video format? I saw a list of over 70 patents covering that, and the
negotiations to arrange a way for somebody to license all those patents
took longer than developing the standard itself. The JPEG committee
wanted to develop a follow-on standard, and they gave up. They said
there were too many patents; there was no way to do it.

但是，仅仅需要面对一两项专利只是一种轻量级的案例。那么，MPEG2 这种视频格式的情况又如何呢？我曾见到过一份列出了超过 70 项覆盖它的专利的清单，想要通过某种方式的谈判获得所有相关专利的使用授权许可所花费的时间超过了该标准本身的开发过程。JPEG 委员会想要开发一种后继的标准，但他们还是放弃了。他们说这涉及的专利实在是太多了，以至于没有可能实现、

Sometimes it’s a feature that’s patented, and the only way to avoid that
patent is not to implement that feature. For instance, the users of the
word processor Xywrite once got a downgrade in the mail, which removed a
feature. The feature was that you could define a list of abbreviations.
For instance, if you define “exp” as an abbreviation for “experiment,”
then if you type “exp-space” or “exp-comma,” the “exp” would change
automatically to “experiment.”

有时，受专利保护的是某种功能特性，回避该专利的唯一方式是不去实现那项特性。例如，文字处理器 Xywrite 的用户曾经收到有关功能降级的邮件，这项降级移除了一项特性。该特性允许您定义一系列缩略语。例如，如果您将 exp 定义为 experiment 的缩略语，那么当您输入 exp 空格或者 exp 逗号时，exp 将会自动变为 experiment。

Then somebody who had a patent on this feature threatened them, and they
concluded that the only thing they could do was to take the feature out.
And so they sent all the users a downgrade.

然后，此功能的专利持有者威胁他们，他们得出结论，所能做的唯一事情就是移除该功能，他们于是向所有用户发送了降级。

But they also contacted me, because my Emacs editor had a feature like
that starting from the late 70s. And it was described in the Emacs
manual, so they thought I might be able to help them invalidate that
patent. Well, I’m happy to know I’ve had at least one patentable idea in
my life, but I’m unhappy that someone else patented it.

但是，他们也联系了我，由于我编写的 Emacs 文本编辑器自 20 世纪 70 年代后期就拥有一项类似功能。这是被写在 Emacs 用户手册中的，于是他们认为我也许能够帮助他们使那项专利作废。我对于自己的一生之中能有至少一项可获专利的想法而感到满意，但我并不希望看到其他人用它申请专利。

Fortunately, in fact, that patent was eventually invalidated, and partly
on the strength of the fact that I had published using it earlier. But
in the meantime they had had to remove this feature.

事实上，幸运的是，那项专利最终被判无效，这在一定程度上得益于我先于该专利将其公开这一事实。然而在当时他们确实不得不移除了那项功能。

Now, to remove one or two features may not be a disaster. But when you
have to remove 50 features, you could do it, but people are likely to
say, “This program’s no good; it’s missing all the features I want.” So
it may not be a solution. And sometimes a patent is so broad that it
wipes out an entire field, like the patent on public-key encryption,
which in fact put public-key encryption basically off limits for about
ten years.

现在看来，移除一两项功能可能并不至于带来一场灾难。但是，如果您不得不移除 50 项功能呢？您自己可以这样做，但人们很可能会说：“这个程序不怎么样，缺少我所需要的任何功能。”因此，这可能不能成为一种解决方案。并且，有时一项专利的覆盖范围是如此宽泛，以至于它横扫了某一整个领域，例如关于公钥加密的专利，它事实上使得公钥加密在将近 10 年时间内几乎被完全禁止。

So that’s the option of avoiding the patent—often possible, but
sometimes not, and there’s a limit to how many patents you can avoid.

以上说的是回避专利的选项——这通常是可能的，但有时是不可能的，并且您最多能回避多少专利是有限度的。

What about the next possibility, of getting a license for the patent?

那么，下一种可能性又当如何？即试图获得专利的使用授权许可。

Well, the patent holder may not offer you a license. It’s entirely up to
him. He could say, “I just want to shut you down.” I once got a letter
from somebody whose family business was making casino games, which were
of course computerized, and he had been threatened by a patent holder
who wanted to make his business shut down. He sent me the patent. Claim
1 was something like “a network with a multiplicity of computers, in
which each computer supports a multiplicity of games, and allows a
multiplicity of game sessions at the same time.”

首先，专利持有者也许根本不会考虑给您一份授权许可，这完全取决于他的意志。他可以说：“我就是要逼你停业。”我曾经收到某人来信求助，此人的家族企业当时正在经营博彩游戏，当然是计算机上的，他被专利持有人威胁关闭他的整个企业。他将该项专利发送给我。其权利要求 1 是关于这样的东西：“一种拥有多台计算机的网络，其中每台计算机支持多种游戏，并且允许多个游戏会话在同时进行。”

Now, I’m sure in the 1980s there was a university that set up a room
with a network of workstations, and each workstation had some kind of
windowing facility. All they had to do was to install multiple games and
it would be possible to display multiple game sessions at once. This is
so trivial and uninteresting that nobody would have bothered to publish
an article about doing it. No one would have been interested in
publishing an article about doing it, but it was worth patenting it. If
it had occurred to you that you could get a monopoly on this trivial
thing, then you could shut down your competitors with it.

现在，我能够确信在 20 世纪 80 年代，有一所大学建立起了这样一间计算机房，内有一系列联网的工作站，每台工作站都拥有某种窗口显示功能。他们所需要做的全部事情就是去安装几种游戏，那些计算机将会可能同时显示多个游戏会话。这是多么地平淡无奇，以至于没有人会闲得发布一篇文章讲述如何实现它。没有人会有兴趣来专门为此发表一篇文章，但是，这件事就是值得为其申请专利。如果这件事发生在您身上，您就将获得对于这样平淡无奇之事的垄断权，然后您就可以用这项专利来迫使您的竞争对手停业。

But why does the Patent Office issue so many patents that seem absurd
and trivial to us?

但是，为何专利局会批准如此之多的在我们看来荒唐可笑而又穷极无聊的专利呢？

It’s not because the patent examiners are stupid, it’s because they’re
following a system, and the system has rules, and the rules lead to this
result.

这并非由于专利审查者的愚蠢，而是由于他们必须遵守一种体系，这种体系有其规则，而这些规则必然引起这种结果。

You see, if somebody has made a machine that does something once, and
somebody else designs a machine that will do the same thing, but N
times, for us that’s a `for`-loop, but for the Patent Office that’s an
invention. If there are machines that can do A, and there are machines
that can do B, and somebody designs a machine that can do A or B, for us
that’s an `if-then-else` statement, but for the Patent Office that’s an
invention. So they have very low standards, and they follow those
standards; and the result is patents that look absurd and trivial to us.
Whether they’re legally valid I can’t say. But every programmer who sees
them laughs.

您已经看到了，如果某人研究了一台机器用于做一次某事，而其他人研制了一台能做同样一件事的机器，但它会连续做 N 次。对我们来说这就是 for 循环，但对于专利局而言这就是一种创新。如果有某些机器可以做事情 A，而有另一些机器可以做事情 B，然后某人发明了一种机器可以做 A 或 B，对于我们来说，这就是 if-then-else 语句，但对于专利局而言这就是一种创新。也就是说，他们的标准如此之低，并且他们遵循这些低标准；其结果就是那些在我们看来荒唐可笑而又穷极无聊的专利。它们是否真正合法有效我不敢确定，但是每个程序员见了它们都会呵呵大笑。

In any case, I was unable to suggest anything he could do to help
himself, and he had to shut down his business. But most patent holders
will offer you a license. It’s likely to be rather expensive.

在任何情况下，我都不能给他任何所能采取措施进行自救的建议，他最终被迫关闭了他的企业。但是，大部分专利持有者将会考虑提供给您一份使用授权许可。当然，这通常极其昂贵。

But there are some software developers that find it particularly easy to
get licenses, most of the time. Those are the megacorporations. In any
field the megacorporations generally own about half the patents, and
they cross-license each other, and they can make anybody else
cross-license if he’s really producing anything. The result is that they
end up painlessly with licenses for almost all the patents.

但是，也有一些软件开发者觉得在大多数情况下都很容易获得专利使用授权许可。它们就是行业大鳄。在任何领域，这些行业大鳄通常都会手握该领域的半数专利。它们之间可以进行交叉授权许可，它们也可以迫使任何人同它们进行交叉授权许可，如果此人真的打算生产任何东西。其结果是它们不费吹灰之力就可以获得几乎所有专利的使用授权许可。

IBM wrote an article in its house magazine, Think magazine—I think it’s
issue 5, 1990—about the benefit IBM got from its almost 9,000 US patents
at the time (now it’s up to 45,000 or more). They said that one of the
benefits was that they collected money, but the main benefit, which they
said was perhaps an order of magnitude greater, was “getting access to
the patents of others,” namely cross-licensing.

IBM 曾在其自家杂志，Think 杂志上刊登一篇文章——我认为那是在 1990 年的第 5 期上——文中提到当时 IBM 通过其所拥有的约 9000 项美国专利（现在已有 45000 项甚至更多）所获得的好处。他们说到其中一项好处就是他们藉此赚得盆满钵满；然而，他们所认为的比上述好处还要大出一个数量级的最主要的好处是通过自身拥有的专利获得其他公司所拥有的专利的使用权，即所谓的交叉授权许可。

What this means is since IBM, with so many patents, can make almost
everybody give them a cross-license, IBM avoids almost all the grief
that the patent system would have inflicted on anybody else. So that’s
why IBM wants software patents. That’s why the megacorporations in
general want software patents, because they know that by
cross-licensing, they will have a sort of exclusive club on top of a
mountain peak. And all the rest of us will be down here, and there’s no
way we can get up there. You know, if you’re a genius, you might start
up a small company and get some patents, but you’ll never get into IBM’s
league, no matter what you do.

这种情况意味着，由于 IBM 本身拥有如此之多的专利，它几乎可以迫使任何人给它交叉授权许可。由此 IBM 得以回避专利体系可能为任何其他人施加的几乎所有灾难。这就可以解释为何 IBM 欢迎软件专利。这也可以解释为何行业大鳄普遍欢迎软件专利。由于它们知道自己可以通过交叉授权许可独占整个行业的制高点，犹如在山顶上成立某种专属俱乐部。而我们当中的所有其他人则位于山脚下，并且没有办法企及它们所在的高度。您应该明白，如果您是一位天才，您也许会创立一家小公司并且可能获得一些专利，但您始终不可能进入 IBM 所在的行列，无论您做什么。

Now a lot of companies tell their employees, “Get us patents so we can
defend ourselves” and they mean, “use them to try to get
cross-licensing,” but it just doesn’t work well. It’s not an effective
strategy if you’ve got a small number of patents.

现在，许多公司会对它的员工说：“请你为我们获得专利，这样我们就可以用这些专利保护自己。”它们的实际意思是“试图用这些专利换取交叉授权许可”。但这并不能很好地解决问题。这也不是一种有效的策略，如果您仅仅拥有少数专利。

Suppose you’ve got three patents. One points there, one points there,
and one points there, and somebody over there points a patent at you.
Well, your three patents don’t help you at all, because none of them
points at him. On the other hand, sooner or later, somebody in the
company is going to notice that this patent is actually pointing at some
people, and \[the company\] could threaten them and squeeze money out of
them—never mind that those people didn’t attack this company.

假设您拥有 3 项专利，其中一项指向那里，另一项指向那里，又一项指向那里。而位于此 3 处以外的某处的某人将一项专利矛头指向了您。此时您的 3 项专利不能为您带来丝毫帮助，由于它们当中没有任何一项指向此人。从另一个角度讲，该公司里的某些人迟早会注意到，这项专利实际上是针对某些人的，并且公司可以以此威胁这些人并且榨取其钱财——却从未注意到这些人并未对公司构成威胁。

So if your employer says to you, “We need some patents to defend
ourselves, so help us get patents,” I recommend this response:

于是，如果您的雇主对您说：“我们需要专利来保护自己，请你帮助我们获得专利。”我建议您如此回复：

> Boss, I trust you and I’m sure you would only use those patents to
> defend the company if it’s attacked. But I don’t know who’s going to
> be the CEO of this company in five years. For all I know, it might get
> acquired by Microsoft. So I really can’t trust the company’s word to
> only use these patents for defense unless I get it in writing. Please
> put it in writing that any patents I provide for the company will only
> be used for self-defense and collective security, and not for
> repression, and then I’ll be able to get patents for the company with
> a clean conscience.

> 领导，我信任您并且确信您只会在公司受到威胁的时候使用这些专利来保护公司。但是，我不能确定 5 年以后谁将会是这家公司的首席执行官（CEO）。据我所知，这家公司可能会被微软收购。因此我实在不能信任这家公司关于只会使用这些专利保护自己的口头承诺，除非我能够得到书面承诺。请您白纸黑字地保证我所为这家公司提供的任何专利都将只能被用于保护自己以及公共安全，而非用于压制他人，然后我才可能带着良知去为公司获得专利。

It would be most interesting to raise this not just in private with your
boss, but also on the company’s discussion list.

事情将会变得非常有趣，如果您不仅仅在同您的上司私下交谈时提出这个问题；而是同时在公司的讨论列表中提出。

The other thing that could happen is that the company could fail and its
assets could be auctioned off, including the patents; and the patents
will be bought by someone who means to use them to do something nasty.

另一种可能发生的事情是这家公司将会破产并且其资产将被拍卖，包括专利；而这些专利的买家将会蓄意使用这些专利去做一些龌龊的事情。

This cross-licensing practice is very important to understand, because
this is what punctures the argument of the software patent advocates who
say that software patents are needed to protect the starving genius.
They give you a scenario which is a series of unlikelihoods.

理解这种交叉授权许可的实践是非常重要的，由于这种理解揭穿了软件专利倡导者的论证，他们宣称软件专利是有必要的，这可以用于保护那些穷困潦倒的天才程序员。他们将您带到了一种虚幻的场景，这里有一些不太可能发生的事情。

So let’s look at it. According to this scenario, there’s a brilliant
designer of whatever, who’s been working for years by himself in his
attic coming up with a better way to do whatever it is. And now that
it’s ready, he wants to start a business and mass-produce this thing;
and because his idea is so good his company will inevitably succeed—
except for one thing: the big companies will compete with him and take
all his market the away. And because of this, his business will almost
certainly fail, and then he will starve.

现在让我们着眼于这件事情。根据这种场景，有一位天才的设计者，他擅长设计任何东西，以他能够以更好的方式去实现任何事情的天赋起家，独立工作了若干年，现在时机成熟，他想要创办一家企业以量产他的产品；并且由于他的创意是如此之高明，以至于他的公司不可避免地获得成功——除了一件事情以外：行业大鳄将会与他竞争并且夺走他的全部市场份额。正由于此，他的企业几乎肯定会破产，然后他将会穷困潦倒。

Well, let’s look at all the unlikely assumptions here.

现在，让我们来看看这里的所有那些不太可能发生的假设。

First of all, that he comes up with this idea working by himself. That’s
not very likely. In a high-tech field, most progress is made by people
working in a field, doing things and talking with people in the field.
But I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, not that one thing by itself.

首先，是关于此人以独立工作的方式起家。这是一种不太可能发生的事情。在高科技领域，大部分进展是由在同一领域共同工作的人们共同取得的。但我并不想说这是不可能的，即任何一件事都不是由他独立完成的。

But anyway the next supposition is that he’s going to start a business
and that it’s going to succeed. Well, just because he’s a brilliant
engineer doesn’t mean that he’s any good at running a business. Most new
businesses fail; more than 95 percent of them, I think, fail within a
few years. So that’s probably what’s going to happen to him, no matter
what.

但尽管如此，下一个假设是此人将会创立一家企业并且该企业将会获得成功，这是不太可能的。这是因为此人是一位天才的工程师并不意味着此人在经营企业方面有任何优势。绝大多数初创公司都失败了；超过 95% 的初创公司，我想，将会在短短几年内破产。因此这很可能就是将会发生在他身上的事情，不论他做什么。

OK, let’s assume that in addition to being a brilliant engineer who came
up with something great by himself, he’s also talented at running
businesses. If he has a knack for running businesses, then maybe his
business won’t fail. After all, not all new businesses fail, there are a
certain few that succeed. Well, if he understands business, then instead
of trying to go head to head with large companies, he might try to do
things that small companies are better at and have a better chance of
succeeding. He might succeed. But let’s suppose it fails anyway. If he’s
so brilliant and has a knack for running businesses, I’m sure he won’t
starve, because somebody will want to give him a job.

好吧，让我们做一些附加的假设：一位天才的工程师以他自己的卓越的设计起家，并且此人也精通企业运营。如果他拥有关于经营企业的独到本领，也许他的企业一时不会破产。不管怎么说，并非所有的初创企业都破产了，确实有少数取得了成功。如果此人了解商业规则，那么此人与其试图与行业大鳄正面交锋，不如试图做一些小公司更加擅长的事情，这样成功的机会更大。他也许能够成功，但我们假设不管怎样他还是失败了。如果他真的如此有天赋并且有一套经营企业的本领，我相信他不会穷困潦倒，由于有些人可能愿意给他一个职位。

So a series of unlikelihoods—it’s not a very plausible scenario. But
let’s look at it anyway.

这就是一系列不太可能的事情——这已经是一种不太现实的场景。但我们继续着眼于它。

Because where they go from there is to say the patent system will
“protect” our starving genius, because he can get a patent on this
technique. And then when IBM wants to compete with him, he says, “IBM,
you can’t compete with me, because I’ve got this patent,” and IBM says,
“Oh, no, not again!”

由于不管走到哪里都会有这样一种说法，专利体系将会“保护”那些穷困潦倒的天才，由于他可以获得一项关于他的技术的专利。于是，当 IBM 想要同他竞争的时候，他会说：“IBM，你不能同我竞争，因为我拥有这项专利。”然后 IBM 会说：“哦，不，再也不会了！”

Well, here’s what really happens.

然而，这才是真正将会发生的事情：

IBM says, “Oh, how nice, you have a patent. Well, we have this patent,
and this patent, and this patent, and this patent, and this patent, all
of which cover other ideas implemented in your product, and if you think
you can fight us on all those, we’ll pull out some more. So let’s sign a
cross-license agreement, and that way nobody will get hurt.” Now since
we’ve assumed that our genius understands business, he’s going to
realize that he has no choice. He’s going to sign the cross-license
agreement, as just about everybody does when IBM demands it. And then
this means that IBM will get “access” to his patent, meaning IBM would
be free to compete with him just as if there were no patents, which
means that the supposed benefit that they claim he would get by having
this patent is not real. He won’t get this benefit.

IBM 将会说：“哦，真不错，你拥有一项专利。可是我们拥有这项专利，还有这项专利，还有这项专利，还有这项专利，还有这项专利，所有这些专利覆盖了你的产品中实施的其他思想。如果你认为你能够对抗我们以上这些专利，我们将会拿出更多专利。这样吧，咱们签订一份交叉授权许可协议，这样谁都不会受到伤害。”现在，由于我们已经假设我们的天才懂得商业规则，他一定会意识到自己别无选择。他将会签订交叉授权许可的城下之盟，如同 IBM 所期望的任何人所做的。这意味着 IBM 将获得他的专利的使用权，也就是 IBM 可以同他展开自由竞争，如同他没有任何专利一般。这也就意味着他们所宣称的他通过拥有这项专利所理应获得的好处是不现实的，他不会得到这样的好处。

The patent might “protect” him from competition from you or me, but not
from IBM—not from the very megacorporations which the scenario says are
the threat to him. You know in advance that there’s got to be a flaw in
this reasoning when people who are lobbyists for megacorporations
recommend a policy supposedly because it’s going to protect their small
competitors from them. If it really were going to do that, they wouldn’t
be in favor of it. But this explains why \[software patents\] won’t do
it.

专利也许确实能够“保护”他不受来自您或者我的竞争威胁，但不能阻止来自 IBM 的竞争威胁——来自那些被此场景证实是对他的威胁的行业大鳄的竞争威胁。您已经事先知道，当那些效忠于行业大鳄的说客建议这样一套政策，据说是由于它有利于保护小公司免于来自行业大鳄的竞争威胁时，其理由当中必然存在某种瑕疵。如果它真的将会产生其所宣称的结果，他们不可能支持它。但这也解释了为什么软件专利不可能达到这样的目的。

Even IBM can’t always do this, because there are companies that we refer
to as patent trolls or patent parasites, and their only business is
using patents to squeeze money out of people who really make something.

即使是 IBM 也不能总是成功采取这样的方式，由于还存在着一些我们称之为专利流氓或者专利寄生虫的公司，它们所从事的唯一业务就是在人们真正想要做一些事情的时候，跳出来使用其所掌控的专利来榨取他们的钱财。

Patent lawyers tell us that it’s really wonderful to have patents in
your field, but they don’t have patents in their field. There are no
patents on how to send or write a threatening letter, no patents on how
to file a lawsuit, and no patents on how to persuade a judge or jury, so
even IBM can’t make the patent trolls cross-license. But IBM figures,
“Our competition will have to pay them too; this is just part of the
cost of doing business, and we can live with it.” IBM and the other
megacorporations figure that the general dominion over all activity that
they get from their patents is good for them, and paying off the trolls
they can live with. So that’s why they want software patents.

专利律师对我们说：在你们的领域里有专利的存在真的是一件美好的事情。但是，在他们的领域里并没有专利。那里没有关于如何书写并寄出恐吓信的专利，没有关于如何发起一桩法律诉讼的专利，没有关于如何说服法官或陪审团的专利。因此，即使是 IBM 也不能迫使专利流氓签订交叉授权许可协议。但是 IBM 算清了：“我们的竞争对手也必须向它们付钱；这只是进行商业活动的成本的一部分，我们能够承受。”IBM 和其他行业大鳄得出这样的结论：通过其所拥有的专利能够获得对于所有商业活动的普遍统治地位，扣除付给专利流氓的保护费后仍然能够承受。这就是它们欢迎软件专利的原因。

There are also certain software developers who find it particularly
difficult to get a patent license, and those are the developers of free
software. The reason is that the usual patent license has conditions we
can’t possibly fulfill, because usual patent licenses demand a payment
per copy. But when software gives users the freedom to distribute and
make more copies, we have no way to count the copies that exist.

确实也有软件开发者发现他们很难获得一项专利的使用授权许可，这些人是自由软件的开发者。其原因是通常的专利授权许可协议包含我们完全不可能接受的条款：由于通常的专利授权许可协议要求按照再分发的副本数量付费。但是由于自由软件赋予了用户再分发和复制的自由，我们没有办法统计总共存在多少副本。

If someone offered me a patent license for a payment of one-millionth of
a dollar per copy, the total amount of money I’d have to pay maybe is in
my pocket now. Maybe it’s \$50, but I don’t know if it’s \$50, or \$49,
or what, because there’s no way I can count the copies that people have
made.

如果某人向我提供了一项专利使用授权许可，要求为每份副本支付一百万分之一美元的费用，我需要支付的总金额现在也许能够装在我的口袋中，也许是 50 美元，但我不能确定到底是 50 美元，还是 49 美元，还是其他金额，由于我不可能确定人们所复制的副本数量。

A patent holder doesn’t have to demand a payment per copy; a patent
holder could offer you a license for a single lump sum, but those lump
sums tend to be big, like US\$100,000.

还有些专利持有人不愿意按照再分发的副本数量收费；他可以向您开出提供专利使用授权许可的一次性总价，不过这样的总价通常是很高的，例如 10 万美元。

And the reason that we’ve been able to develop so much
freedom-respecting software is \[that\] we can develop software without
money, but we can’t pay a lot of money without money. If we’re forced to
pay for the privilege of writing software for the public, we won’t be
able to do it very much.

我们之所以能够开发出这么多的尊重用户自由的软件，其原因是我们可以在没有钱的条件下开发软件，但我们不能在没有钱的情况下支付一大笔专利授权许可费用。如果我们被迫花钱以换取为公众编写软件的权利，我们不可能在这方面有所建树。

That’s the possibility of getting a license for the patent. The other
possibility is to invalidate the patent. If the country considers
software patents to be basically valid, and allowed, the only question
is whether that particular patent meets the criteria. It’s only useful
to go to court if you’ve got an argument to make that might prevail.

以上就是关于获得专利使用授权许可的可能性。还有一种可能性是试图使专利作废。如果国家将软件专利视为大体有效的并且允许批准它们，那么唯一的问题是某项特定的专利是否符合评估标准。只有当您拥有压倒性的证据的时候，您前去法庭才有意义。

What would that argument be? You have to find evidence that, years ago,
before the patent was applied for, people knew about the same idea. And
you’d have to find things today that demonstrate that they knew about it
publicly at that time. So the dice were cast years ago, and if they came
up favorably for you, and if you can prove that fact today, then you
have an argument to use to try to invalidate the patent. And it might
work.

那么，到底需要的是什么样的证据呢？您必须找到证据以证明早在数年之前，即那项专利被申请之前，人们已经了解相同的思想。您必须找到今天仍然存在的东西以证明当时人们已经普遍知道这种想法。因此，骰子已经于数年前被掷出，如果掷骰子的结果在今天看来仍然对您有利，并且您能够在今天证实当时的事情，那么您将拥有可能用于尝试推翻该专利的证据，这也许能够成功。

It might cost you a lot of money to go through this case, and as a
result, a probably invalid patent is a very frightening weapon to be
threatened with if you don’t have a lot of money. There are people who
can’t afford to defend their rights—lots of them. The ones who can
afford it are the exception.

打完这场官司也许会花费您很多钱。其结果是，一项很可能是无效的专利仍然是可用于威胁您的可怕武器，如果您没有那么多的钱。有人就付不起钱来捍卫他们的权利——非常多的人。当然，那些能够付得起这笔钱的人除外。

These are the three things that you might be able to do about each
patent that prohibits something in your program. The thing is, whether
each one is possible depends on different details of the circumstances,
so some of the time, none of them is possible; and when that happens,
your project is dead.

以上三件事就是当任何专利禁止您的程序中的某些东西的时候，您所能采取的措施。问题的关键是，其中的任何一种方法是否可能，取决于不同的环境细节。因此在有些时候，它们都是不可能的；当这种情况发生时，您的项目已经死了。

But lawyers in most countries tell us, “Don’t try to find the patents in
advance,” and the reason is that the penalty for infringement is bigger
if you knew about the patent. So what they tell you is “Keep your eyes
shut. Don’t try to find out about the patents, just go blindly taking
your design decisions, and hope.”

但是，大多数国家的律师会这样对我们说：“不要想着事先找到相关专利。”其理由是如果您已知某项专利，侵犯它的罚金会更高。于是他们所传达给您的无外乎是：“闭上眼睛，不要试图查找专利，只要盲目地实施你的设计决定，然后去撞大运。”

And of course, with each single design decision, you probably don’t step
on a patent. Probably nothing happens to you. But there are so many
steps you have to take to get across the minefield, it’s very unlikely
you will get through safely. And of course, the patent holders don’t all
show up at the same time, so you don’t know how many there are going to
be.

当然，对于每次单一的设计决定，您可能不会触碰专利，也许您不会遇到任何麻烦。但是，您需要迈出那么多步才能走出雷区，以至于您想要毫发无伤全身而退是非常不现实的。另外显而易见的是，那些专利持有人不会一下子全都现身，于是您不可能知道到底将会遇到多少专利持有人。

The patent holder of the natural order recalculation patent was
demanding 5 percent of the gross sales of every spreadsheet. You could
imagine paying for a few such licenses, but what happens when patent
holder number 20 comes along, and wants you to pay out the last
remaining 5 percent? And then what happens when patent holder number 21
comes along?

电子表格中的自然级数重新计算方法专利的持有人要求按照每份电子表格销售总额的 5% 支付费用。您可以想象为少数几项类似的专利使用授权许可付费，但是，当第 20 位专利持有人前来拜访，要求您将最后剩下的 5% 的钱用于支付专利使用授权许可费用的时候又当如何呢？而第 21 位专利持有人前来拜访的时候又当如何呢？

People in business say that this scenario is amusing but absurd, because
your business would fail long before you got there. They told me that
two or three such licenses would make your business fail. So you’d never
get to 20. They show up one by one, so you never know how many more
there are going to be.

商务人士可能会说这种场景虽然有趣但却是荒唐的，由于在您走到那种境地之前，您的企业早就破产了。他们告诉我，只要两三项类似的专利使用授权许可费用就足以让您的企业破产，于是您不会等到第 20 位专利持有人。由于他们一个接一个地现身，您不可能知道还会来多少位。

Software patents are a mess. They’re a mess for software developers, but
in addition they’re a restriction on every computer user because
software patents restrict what you can do on your computer.

软件专利是一团混乱，它对于软件开发者是一团糟，但除此之外，它们是对每一位计算机用户的限制，因为软件专利限制了您可以用您的计算机去做什么事情。

This is very different from patents, for instance, on automobile
engines. These only restrict companies that make cars; they don’t
restrict you and me. But software patents do restrict you and me, and
everybody who uses computers. So we can’t think of them in purely
economic terms; we can’t judge this issue purely in economic terms.
There’s something more important at stake.

这与其他领域的专利是非常不同的，例如关于汽车引擎的专利，它们只限制汽车制造商，而不会限制您和我。但是，软件专利确实在限制您和我，以及所有使用计算机的人们。因此我们不能将其仅仅作为经济概念考虑；我们不能仅仅从单纯的经济角度评估这个问题。这里有更重要的，生死攸关的事情。

But even in economic terms, the system is self-defeating, because its
purpose is supposed to be to promote progress. Supposedly by creating
this artificial incentive for people to publish ideas, it’s going to
help the field progress. But all it does is the exact opposite, because
the big job in software is not coming up with ideas, it’s implementing
thousands of ideas together in one program. And software patents
obstruct that, so they’re economically self-defeating.

但是，即使只是在经济方面，这种体系也是自相矛盾的。由于它的初衷是促进发展。据说它想要通过创造这种人为的激励机制以鼓励人们发表想法，它将会促进这个领域的进步。但是，它所产生的实际效果恰恰与之相反，因为软件开发过程中的复杂工作不是随着想法信手拈来的，它需要在一个程序中实施数千种想法。而软件专利阻碍了这一过程，因此它们从经济角度上讲也是自相矛盾的。

And there’s even economic research showing that this is so—showing how
in a field with a lot of incremental innovation, a patent system can
actually reduce investment in R&D. And of course, it also obstructs
development in other ways. So even if we ignore the injustice of
software patents, even if we were to look at it in the narrow economic
terms that are usually proposed, it’s still harmful.

甚至还有经济学研究证实事实确实如此——这些研究结果显示，在一个拥有大量增量创新的领域，专利体系确实会减少研发投入。当然，它也会通过其他方式阻碍发展。因此，即使我们无视软件专利所带来的不公，甚至如果我们仅仅狭隘地从它们通常被提议的经济方面考察软件专利，它仍然是有害的。

People sometimes respond by saying that “People in other fields have
been living with patents for decades, and they’ve gotten used to it, so
why should you be an exception?”

人们有时会以这种观点作为回应：“其他领域的人们已经与专利共存了几十年，他们已经习惯了专利的存在，为什么你就应该成为例外？”

Now, that question has an absurd assumption. It’s like saying, “Other
people get cancer, why shouldn’t you?” I think every time someone
doesn’t get cancer, that’s good, regardless of what happened to the
others. That question is absurd because of its presupposition that
somehow we all have a duty to suffer the harm done by patents.

在这里，这个问题当中包含了一种荒唐的假设，这就如同说：“其他人都患了癌症，为什么你就应该幸免？”我认为无论如何，人们不患癌症才是好的，不管其他人如何。这种问题之所以荒唐，是由于它预设了这样的观点：无论如何我们都必须有义务去忍受专利对我们造成的伤害。

But there is a sensible question buried inside it, and that sensible
question is “What differences are there between various fields that
might affect what is good or bad patent policy in those fields?”

但是，这其中又蕴含着一个合理的问题，这个合理的问题是：“在不同的领域之间，究竟存在着什么方面的不同，以致于这种不同将会影响到专利政策在这些领域中是好是坏？”

There is an important basic difference between fields in regard to how
many patents are likely to prohibit or cover parts of any one product.

在不同领域之间，确实存在着某种基本的重要差别，即任何一款产品的组成部分当中有可能被多少项专利禁止或覆盖。

Now we have a naive idea in our minds which I’m trying to get rid of,
because it’s not true. And it’s that on any one product there is one
patent, and that patent covers the overall design of that product. So if
you design a new product, it can’t be patented already, and you will
have an opportunity to get “the patent” on that product.

现在，我们的脑海中可能有这样一种天真的想法，这是我正在尽力克服的，由于它不是真实的。这种想法是在任何一款产品的背后都只有一项专利，而这项专利覆盖了这款产品的全部设计理念。因此如果您设计一款新产品，它不能是已获专利的，并且您将有机会获得关于该产品的“那项专利”。

That’s not how things work. In the 1800s, maybe they did, but not now.
In fact, fields fall on a spectrum of how many patents \[there are\] per
product. The beginning of the spectrum is one, but no field is like that
today; fields are at various places on this spectrum.

事情并不是这样的。也许早在 19 世纪确实是这样，但现在则不是。事实上，领域之间可以像光谱那样按照每个产品对应多少项专利来划分。这种光谱的起始点是 1，但如今已经没有那样的领域；当今的领域分布在光谱上的不同位置。

The field that’s closest to that is pharmaceuticals. A few decades ago,
there really was one patent per pharmaceutical, at least at any time,
because the patent covered the entire chemical formula of that one
particular substance. Back then, if you developed a new drug, you could
be sure it wasn’t already patented by somebody else and you could get
the one patent on that drug.

最接近这种情况的领域是制药。几十年前，确实每种药物只有一项专利，在任何时候都如此，由于该专利覆盖了一种特定物质的全部化学分子式。在当时，如果您开发了一种新药，您可以确认它没有被任何其他人申请专利，并且您可以获得该药物的唯一专利。

But that’s not how it works now. Now there are broader patents, so now
you could develop a new drug, and you’re not allowed to make it because
somebody has a broader patent which covers it already.

但是现在的情况与之不同。现在有了更宽泛的专利，于是现在您可能开发一种新药，但是您不被允许生产它，由于某人已经拥有一项覆盖了它的宽泛的专利。

And there might even be a few such patents covering your new drug
simultaneously, but there won’t be hundreds. The reason is, our ability
to do biochemical engineering is so limited that nobody knows how to
combine so many ideas to make something that’s useful in medicine. If
you can combine a couple of them you’re doing pretty well at our level
of knowledge. But other fields involve combining more ideas to make one
thing.

也许甚至会有几项专利同时覆盖了您的新药，但不会是多达数百项。其原因是，我们进行生物工程研究的能力还相对有限，没有人知道如何将这么多的思想组合在一起以生产出在医学方面有用的物质。如果您能够组合其中的两种，您的成就对于我们的知识水平已经非常了不起。但是，其他领域将会涉及将众多想法组合起来以做成一件事。

At the other end of the spectrum is software, where we can combine more
ideas into one usable design than anybody else, because our field is
basically easier than all other fields. I’m presuming that the
intelligence of people in our field is the same as that of people in
physical engineering. It’s not that we’re fundamentally better than they
are; it’s that our field is fundamentally easier, because we’re working
with mathematics.

这幅光谱的另一端是软件领域。在这里，我们比任何其他人都能将更多的想法融入一项有用的设计，由于我们的领域从根本上比任何其他领域都更简单。我假设我们的领域中的人们的智力与物理工程领域的人们的智力相当。这不是说我们从根本上比他们更有能力；这只是在说我们的领域从根本上说更加简单，因为我们是用数学来工作。

A program is made out of mathematical components, which have a
definition, whereas physical objects don’t have a definition. The matter
does what it does, so through the perversity of matter, your design may
not work the way it “should” have worked. And that’s just tough. You
can’t say that the matter has a bug in it, and the physical universe
should get fixed. \[Whereas\] we \[programmers\] can make a castle that
rests on a mathematically thin line, and it stays up because nothing
weighs anything.

程序是由众多数学的成分构成的，这些数学成分拥有某种定义，而物理对象是没有定义的。物质会按其规律发生作用，这是由于物质的本性。而您的设计不一定会按照它们“应当”采取的作用方式发生作用，这只是一种困难。您不能说物质有错误，而物理宇宙应当修复它们。而我们程序员可以在一条数学中的没有粗细的线上建起一座城堡，它能够屹立不倒，因为它里面的任何东西都没有重量。

There’re so many complications you have to cope with in physical
engineering that we don’t have to worry about.

在物理工程中，您必须解决众多复杂性，而我们无需为之担心。

For instance, when I put an `if`-statement inside of a `while`-loop,

例如，当我将一个 if 语句置于一个 while 循环中时：

-   I don’t have to worry that if this `while`-loop repeats at the wrong
    rate, the `if`-statement might start to vibrate and it might
    resonate and crack;

-   我无需担心如果 while 循环以错误的频率重复，其中的 if 语句可能将会开始振动，它也许将会由于发生共振而断裂；

-   I don’t have to worry that if it resonates much faster—you know,
    millions of times per second—that it might generate radio frequency
    signals that might induce wrong values in other parts of the
    program;

-   我无需担心如果它们的共振频率过快——您知道，大约每秒数百万次——以至于它将会生成无线电频率信号并由此导致程序中的其他部分产生错误的值；

-   I don’t have to worry that corrosive fluids from the environment
    might seep in between the `if`-statement and the `while`-statement
    and start eating away at them until the signals don’t pass anymore;

-   我无需担心环境中的腐蚀性液体可能会渗入 if 语句和 while 语句之间的缝隙并且开始侵蚀它们以致于信号再也不能被传递；

-   I don’t have to worry about how the heat generated by my
    `if`-statement is going to get out through the `while`-statement so
    that it doesn’t make the `if`-statement burn out; and

-   我无需担心 if 语句产生的热如何才能传导至 while 语句以外，以保证这不会使得 if 语句过热烧毁；

-   I don’t have to worry about how I would take out the broken
    `if`-statement if it does crack, burn, or corrode, and replace it
    with another `if`-statement to make the program run again.

-   我无需担心我应当以何种方式移除受损的 if 语句，不论它到底是断裂、烧毁还是被腐蚀，并且将其更换为另一个完好的 if 语句以使得程序再次能够运行。

For that matter, I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to insert the
`if`-statement inside the `while`-statement every time I produce a copy
of the program. I don’t have to design a factory to make copies of my
program, because there are various general commands that will make
copies of anything.

基于此原因，我无需担心在我每次为程序复制一份副本的时候应当以何种方式将 if 语句插入到 while 语句中。我无需设计一座工厂来复制我的程序，由于几个通用的命令就能用于复制任何东西。

If I want to make copies on CD, I just have to write a master; and
there’s one program I can \[use to\] make a master out of anything,
write any data I want. I can make a master CD and write it and send it
off to a factory, and they’ll duplicate whatever I send them. I don’t
have to design a different factory for each thing I want to duplicate.

如果我想要在光盘（CD）上制作副本，我只需刻录一片母盘；有一种程序使得我可以将其用于为任何东西制作母盘或者烧录任何我需要写入的数据。我可以制作一片母盘，刻录之后将其送至一座工厂，他们将会复制我所发送的任何东西。我无需为我想要复制的每件不同的东西设计一座不同的工厂。

Very often with physical engineering you have to do that; you have to
design products for manufacturability. Designing the factory may even be
a bigger job than designing the product, and then you may have to spend
millions of dollars to build the factory. So with all of this trouble,
you’re not going to be able to put together so many different ideas in
one product and have it work.

而对于物理工程，您通常不得不去做这些事情：您必须基于可制造性来设计产品。设计工厂也许甚至比设计产品的任务更为艰巨，并且而后您可能还必须花费数百万美元建厂。由于以上这些困难，您将不能将如此之多的想法融入一款产品并且使之可用。

A physical design with a million nonrepeating different design elements
is a gigantic project. A program with a million different design
elements, that’s nothing. It’s a few hundred thousand lines of code, and
a few people will write that in a few years, so it’s not a big deal. So
the result is that the patent system weighs proportionately heavier on
us than it does on people in any other field who are being held back by
the perversity of matter.

一项拥有一百万项不重复的设计元素的物理设计是浩大的，而一个拥有一百万项设计元素的程序则再普通不过。它只是数十万行代码，几个人可以在几年之内完成，因此它不是什么大事。其结果是，专利体系对我们造成的压力相比之下更重，相对于那些在其他领域工作的人们，他们只是会被物质的本性所阻挡。

A lawyer did a study of one particular large program, namely the kernel
Linux, which is used together with the GNU operating system that I
launched. This was five years ago now; he found 283 different US
patents, each of which appeared to prohibit some computation done
somewhere in the code of Linux. At the time I saw an article saying that
Linux was 0.25 percent of the whole system. So by multiplying 300 by 400
we can estimate the number of patents that would prohibit something in
the whole system as being around 100,000. This is a very rough estimate
only, and no more accurate information is available, since trying to
figure it out would be a gigantic task.

一位律师曾经研究过一个特定的大型程序，也就是 Linux 内核。它与我所发起的 GNU 操作系统配合使用。这是在 5 年之前的事情；他发现共有 283 项不同的美国专利，其中每一项看起来都会禁止在 Linux 代码中的某处进行某种计算。与此同时，我看到的一篇文章称 Linux 约占整个 GNU 操作系统的 0.25%。因此，将 300 乘以 400，我们便可预计出可能禁止了整个系统中的某些东西的专利数量约为 10 万。这是一个非常粗略的估计，没有更加精确的信息了，由于试图弄清这个问题将会是一项过于庞杂的任务。

Now this lawyer did not publish the list of patents, because that would
have endangered the developers of Linux the kernel, putting them in a
position where the penalties if they were sued would be greater. He
didn’t want to hurt them; he wanted to demonstrate how bad this problem
is, of patent gridlock.

现在，这位律师并未公布相关专利的清单，由于这将威胁 Linux 内核开发者，将其置于一种一旦被起诉将面临更高罚金的境地。他并不想伤害他们；他只是想展示问题究竟有多么严重，关于专利困局。

Programmers can understand this immediately, but politicians usually
don’t know much about programming; they usually imagine that patents are
basically much like copyrights, only somehow stronger. They imagine that
since software developers are not endangered by the copyrights on their
work, that they won’t be endangered by the patents on their work either.
They imagine that, since when you write a program you have the
copyright, \[therefore likewise\] if you write a program you have the
patents also. This is false—so how do we give them a clue what patents
would really do? What they really do in countries like the US?

程序员可以立即理解这些，但是政治家通常对编程知之甚少；他们通常想象专利大体上就像版权，只是略强一些。他们想象既然软件开发者没有受到关于他们的工作的版权的威胁，于是他们也不会受到关于他们的工作的专利的威胁。他们想象既然当您编写一个程序的时候您可以获得它的版权，与之相似地，当您编写一个程序的时候也将获得它的专利。这是不正确的——那么我们怎样才能给他们一条线索，使他们明白专利真正将会造成什么后果呢？它们在像美国这样允许软件专利的国家里究竟造成了什么后果呢？

I find it’s useful to make an analogy between software and symphonies.
Here’s why it’s a good analogy.

我发现将软件和交响乐进行类比是有用的。以下是为什么这是一种好的类比的理由：

A program or symphony combines many ideas. A symphony combines many
musical ideas. But you can’t just pick a bunch of ideas and say “Here’s
my combination of ideas, do you like it?” Because in order to make them
work you have to implement them all. You can’t just pick musical ideas
and list them and say, “Hey, how do you like this combination?” You
can’t hear that \[list\]. You have to write notes which implement all
these ideas together.

一段程序或者一段交响乐都将集合诸多灵感创意。所不同的是，交响乐所汇集的是众多音乐灵感。但是，您不能只是简单地拎起一串灵感并且说：“这是我的灵感集合，你喜欢吗？”由于为了使它们有意义，您必须去实现这些灵感。您不能只是挑选若干灵感，列出清单并且说：“嗨，你到底有多么喜欢这种灵感组合？”您不能将那份灵感清单当成音乐来听。您必须写出音符来将这些灵感一起实现。

The hard task, the thing most of us wouldn’t be any good at, is writing
all these notes to make the whole thing sound good. Sure, lots of us
could pick musical ideas out of a list, but we wouldn’t know how to
write a good-sounding symphony to implement those ideas. Only some of us
have that talent. That’s the thing that limits you. I could probably
invent a few musical ideas, but I wouldn’t know how to use them to any
effect.

而这项我们当中的大部分人可能完全不擅长的艰巨任务是写出全部所需的音符以使得所有这一切悦耳动听。当然，我们中的很多人都能从音乐灵感清单中挑选一些，但我们并不知道如何实现这些灵感以创作出动听的交响乐。我们当中只有一些人拥有这样的天赋。正是这件事限制了您。我也许可能发明少数音乐创意，但我不知道怎样使用它们以产生任何效果。

So imagine that it’s the 1700s, and the governments of Europe decide
that they want to promote the progress of symphonic music by
establishing a system of musical idea patents, so that any musical idea
described in words could be patented.

假设现在是 18 世纪，欧洲各国政府决定它们想要通过创立一种音乐灵感专利体系来促进交响乐的发展，于是任何以文字形式描述的音乐灵感都可以被专利保护。

For instance, using a particular sequence of notes as a motif could be
patented, or a chord progression could be patented, or a rhythmic
pattern could be patented, or using certain instruments by themselves
could be patented, or a format of repetitions in a movement could be
patented. Any sort of musical idea that could be described in words
would have been patentable.

例如，将某一特定序列的音符用于修饰音可以被专利保护；或者某种和弦进程可以被专利保护；或者某种旋律结构可以被专利保护；或者由其本人使用某些特定乐器可以被专利保护；或者音乐行进过程中的某种重复格式可以被专利保护。总之，任何类型的音乐灵感只要能被文字描述皆可获得专利。

Now imagine that it’s 1800 and you’re Beethoven, and you want to write a
symphony. You’re going to find it’s much harder to write a symphony you
don’t get sued for than to write one that sounds good, because you have
to thread your way around all the patents that exist. If you complained
about this, the patent holders would say, “Oh, Beethoven, you’re just
jealous because we had these ideas first. Why don’t you go and think of
some ideas of your own?”

假设现在是在 19 世纪，您是贝多芬，并且您想要创作一首交响乐。您将会发现想要创作出一首使您不会受到专利起诉的交响乐远比创作出一首动听的交响乐更加困难。由于您必须绕过所有已存在的专利。如果您对此不满，专利持有者将会说：“哦，贝多芬，您看起来只是对我们先于您拥有这些灵感而感到嫉妒，您为何不走开，并且回去想出一些属于您自己的灵感呢？”

Now Beethoven had ideas of his own. The reason he’s considered a great
composer is because of all of the new ideas that he had, and he actually
used. And he knew how to use them in such a way that they would work,
which was to combine them with lots of well-known ideas. He could put a
few new ideas into a composition together with a lot of old and
uncontroversial ideas. And the result was a piece that was
controversial, but not so much so that people couldn’t get used to it.

现在，贝多芬有了自己的灵感。他被称为一位伟大的作曲家是由于他所拥有并且实际使用的所有灵感。并且他还知道如何使用这些灵感，使得它们能够发挥作用，即将他们与众多为人们所熟知的灵感相结合。他可以将少数创新的灵感与众多古老的并且不会引起争论的灵感一同融入创作。其创作结果是一段可能引起争议的乐章，但还没有达到足以使得人们难以适应的程度。

To us, Beethoven’s music doesn’t sound controversial; I’m told it was,
when it was new. But because he combined his new ideas with a lot of
known ideas, he was able to give people a chance to stretch a certain
amount. And they could, which is why to us those ideas sound just fine.
But nobody, not even a Beethoven, is such a genius that he could
reinvent music from zero, not using any of the well-known ideas, and
make something that people would want to listen to. And nobody is such a
genius he could reinvent computing from zero, not using any of the
well-known ideas, and make something that people want to use.

对于我们来说，贝多芬的音乐听起来并不那么容易引起争议；我曾听说他的作品是这样的，由于它们是新颖的。但由于他将其创新的灵感与众多已知的灵感相结合，他才给人们以延伸其境界的机会，他们也能够这样做，这正是为什么对我们来说那些灵感其实很好的原因。但是，没有人能够，即使是贝多芬也不能，成为这样的天才，其天赋足以使他能够从零开始重新发明音乐，而完全不去使用任何已经为人们所熟知的灵感，并且创造出人们想要欣赏的东西。

When the technological context changes so frequently, you end up with a
situation where what was done 20 years ago is totally inadequate. Twenty
years ago there was no World Wide Web. So, sure, people did a lot of
things with computers back then, but what they want to do today are
things that work with the World Wide Web. And you can’t do that using
only the ideas that were known 20 years ago. And I presume that the
technological context will continue to change, creating fresh
opportunities for somebody to get patents that give the shaft to the
whole field.

在这个技术环境变化如此频繁的时代，您终将达到这样一种境地，20 年之前所实现的东西现在完全不足以胜任需求。20 年前根本没有万维网。当然，人们在那之前也曾用计算机做过很多事情，但他们今天想要做的事情是那些能够与万维网协同工作的事情。并且您不可能只用 20 年前为人们所知的想法去做这些事情。并且我假设技术环境将会持续发生变化，从而创造出崭新的机会使得某些人可以得到那些欺骗了整个领域的专利。

Big companies can even do this themselves. For instance, a few years ago
Microsoft decided to make a phony open standard for documents and to get
it approved as a standard by corrupting the International Standards
Organization, which they did. But they designed it using something that
Microsoft had patented. Microsoft is big enough that it can start with a
patent, design a format or protocol to use that patented idea (whether
it’s helpful or not), in such a way that there’s no way to be compatible
unless you use that same idea too. And then Microsoft can make that a de
facto standard with or without help from corrupted standards bodies.
Just by its weight it can push people into using that format, and that
basically means that they get a stranglehold over the whole world. So we
need to show the politicians what’s really going on here. We need to
show them why this is bad.

行业大鳄甚至可以自己来做这件事情。例如几年之前，微软决定设计一种用于文档的伪开放标准并且通过贿赂腐化国际标准化组织（ISO）使其被批准为一项标准。但是微软在设计它的过程中使用了一些受微软自家的专利所保护的东西。微软足够强大，使得它可以从一项专利起手，使用这种受专利保护的想法来设计一种格式或协议（不论其是否有益），这样一种设计方式使得没有任何方法可以与其兼容，除非您使用完全相同的设计思想。然后微软可以使其成为事实上的标准，不论能否得到已经腐化堕落的标准化组织的助纣为虐。仅凭其自身的地位，微软就可以迫使用户使用那种格式，这就基本上宣告微软已经扼住了全世界的咽喉。因此，我们需要向政治家说明这将会真正造成什么后果。我们需要向他们证明为什么这绝不是一件好事。

Now I’ve heard it said that the reason New Zealand is considering
software patents is that one large company wants to be given some
monopolies. To restrict everyone in the country so that one company will
make more money is the absolute opposite of statesmanship.

现在我听说新西兰正在考虑软件专利的原因是一家行业大鳄想要藉此被赋予某种垄断地位。以限制国家里的每一个人的自由的方式来让一家商业公司大发横财，这是完全违背治国理念的。