第十二篇



             Whose Bright Idea?



Companies are cracking down on pirates who steal designs, movies and computer programs. The battle is getting hotter — and more important.



(1)  When Johnson & Johnson introduced a new fiber-glass casting tape for broken bones several years ago, executives at Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing flew into a rage. The tape, which sets fractures faster than plaster`, was remarkably similar in design and function to a casting tape developed by 3M scientists. The St. Paul-based company quickly sued, charging J&J with violating four of its patents. Last month a federal court backed 3M and ordered J&J to pay $116 million in damages and interest — the fourth largest pat-ent-infringement judgment in history.



(2)  Although the verdict is subject to appeal, the award underscores the growing importance of protecting in-tellectual property. That phrase may seem entirely too grand to apply to a song like If You Don’t Want My Peaches, You’d Better Stop Shaking My Tree, but it actually embraces the whole vast range of creative ideas that turn out to have value — and many of them have more value than ever. From Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse to Upjohn’s formula for its antibaldness potion`, patents, trademarks and copyrights have become corporate treas-ures that their owners will do almost anything to protect.



(3)  In an economy increasingly based on information and technology, ideas and creativity often embody most of a company’s wealth. That is why innovations are being patented, trademarked and copyrighted in record numbers. It is also why today’s clever thief doesn’t rob banks, many of which are broke anyway; he makes un-authorized copies of Kevin Costner’s latest film, sells ______ Cartier watches and steals the formula for Merck’s newest pharmaceutical`. That’s where the money is.



(4)  The battle is widening — U.S. companies filed more than 5,700 intellectual-property lawsuits last year in contrast to 3,800 in 1980 — and the stakes can be enormous. In the biggest patent-infringement case to date, Eastman Kodak was ordered last October to pay $900 million for infringing on seven Polaroid in-stant-photography patents. In a $100 million trademark suit, Mirage Studios, creator of the hugely popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters, is demanding that AT&T refrain from using such terms as turtle power and cowabunga in a 900-number telephone service for kids. In a far-reaching copyright case, book pub-lishers scored an important victory in March when a federal court in New York City fined the Kinko’s Graphics national chain of copying stores $510,000 for illegally photocopying and selling excerpts of books to college students.



(5)  Yet thieves still reap a rich harvest. Inadequate protection of U.S. patents, trademarks and copyrights costs the U.S. economy $80 billion in sales lost to pirates and 250,000 jobs every year, according to Gary Hoffman, an intellectual-property attorney at Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin in Washington. The computer industry loses upwards of $4 billion of revenues a year to illegal copying of software programs. Piracy of movies, books and recordings costs the entertainment business at least $4 billion annually.



(6)  With intellectual property now accounting for more than 25% of U.S. exports (compared with just 12% eight years ago), protection against international piracy ranks high on the Bush Administration’s trade agenda. The U.S. International Trade Commission, the federal agency that deals with unfair-trade complaints by Ameri-can companies, is handling a record number of cases (38 last year). Says ITC Chairman Anne Brunsdale: “Conceptual property has replaced produce and heavy machinery as the hotbed of global trade disputes.”



(7)  One reason is that any countries offer only feeble protection to intellectual property. Realizing that such laxness will exclude them from much world trade as well as restrict native industries, nations everywhere are revising laws covering patents, copyrights and trade names. Malaysia, Egypt, China, Turkey, Brazil and even the Soviet Union have all recently announced plans either to enact new laws or reinforce existing safeguards. In an effort to win U.S. congressional support for a proposed free-trade pact, Mexico last month revealed plans to double the life of trademark licenses to 10 years and extend patent protection for the first time to such products as pharmaceuticals and food.



(8)  Countries that don’t get with the program are asking for trouble. The Bush Administration in April placed India and Thailand on the commerce Department watch list for possible revenge because of those countries’ casual treatment of property rights. In Thailand, cited as the most notorious violator, copycat versions of Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software sell for the equivalent of $50 instead of the $500 U.S. price. New movies like David Lynch’s Wild at Heart, not yet available on video in the U.S., go for $4 a tape.



(9)  As intellectual property becomes more valuable and secure, people naturally create more of it. Evidence: filings for patents, trademarks and copyrights are hitting record highs. Last year some 174,700 patents were filed in the U.S., a 39% jump over 1985. The number of copyrights registered soared to 643,000 last year, in contrast to 401,000 in a five-year period ending in 1975. Overseas filings are also up. In Japan the number of patent applications nearly doubled between 1980 and 1988 as that government signaled its intention to enforce property laws more strictly. After a 29-year delay, Texas Instruments recently received a basic patent on inte-grated circuits in Japan that could bring the U.S. company an extra $500 million in annual revenues from Japa-nese chipmakers.



(10)  Can intellectual-property protection be too rigourous? Maybe. The computer software industry, which thrives on the rapid exchange of ideas and continuous improvements, fears that vigorously enforced patents could chill innovation and stifle growth. Earlier this year, Hayes Microcomputer, the largest supplier of com-puter modems, won $11 million in damages from three Silicon Valley firms that copied Hayes’ software for sending and receiving data. The ruling alarmed programmers, who fear their own software could land them in court if it merely resembles someone else’s too closely. The industry also worries about the breadth of coverage. Can copyrights and patents be used to protect the display-screen appearance, the “look and feel” of software? Such questions are at the heart of Apple Computer’s intently watched copyright suit against Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, which Apple says copied its Macintosh software.



(11)  Time was when such fights over intellectual property were legal esoterica`. No longer. Get used to them because they are sure to command ever more attention. Says Lisa Raines, general counsel and director of the Industrial Biotechnology Association in Washington: “ A patent is the single most important item in the industry today. Without it, no company would invest or invent.” As global enterprise relies less on physical materials and more on human creativity, reliable protection of intellectual property will become central to world commerce.





【参考译文】: 谁的好主意？



企业大举进攻那些偷窃设计、电影与电脑程序的强盗。这场战争方兴未艾，且日形重要



(1) 几年前，强生公司推出一种新的玻璃纤维质料的骨折固定带，但是3M公司的主管大为光火。这种能比石膏更快固定住骨折的绷带，在设计与功能上跟3M科学家研发出的产品实在太像了。位于圣保罗市的这家公司立刻控告强生侵害它的四项专利。上个月联邦法院判定3M胜诉，并下令强生付出1.16亿美元的损害与利益赔偿。这是有史以来第四大的专利损害赔偿判决。



(2) 这个判决很可能会上诉，但是如此的赔偿金额强调了保护知识产权与日俱增的重要性。对于像是“如果你不要摘桃子，就别摇我的树”这种歌曲，使用“知识产权”来形容它未免小题大做，但是这个词汇其实包含极大范围的各种创意——不但有价值，而且很多比以前更有价值。从迪斯尼的米老鼠到普强药厂的防秃头药水，各种专利权、商标权和版权已经成为企业几乎要不择手段来保护的财富。



(3) 在经济越发依靠资讯与科技为基础的情况下，点子与创意经常象征一个公司大部分的财富。因此新发明正以创记录的数字被赋予专利、商标与版权。也因此现在的妙贼不再去抢银行（反正很多已经破产了），而去制造未经授权的凯文·柯斯特纳新片（录像带）；去卖假的Cartier表；去偷Merck药厂新药的配方。这才是赚钱的行当。



(4) 这场战争正在扩大——美国企业在去年共有5700件知识产权的官司，而在1980年只有3800件。而获胜的“奖励”会很可观。目前最大的一起侵害专利案件，是伊士曼"柯达公司在去年10月，被判侵犯宝丽来公司七项专利，必须赔偿9亿美元。在一场价值1亿美元的商标权诉讼中，创造轰动影坛“忍者龟”电影角色的幻象片场，要求AT&T在供儿童使用的900电话服务中，不准使用“龟能量”和 “cowabunga” 这些字眼。在一宗影响深远的版权之争中，出版商获致重大胜利。3月时，纽约市的联邦法院判决Kinko’s Graphics全国复印连锁店51万美元的罚款，因为它非法复印并销售经节录的书籍给大学生。



(5) 然而偷窃者仍得享暴利。Gary Hoffman 是华盛顿Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin 律师事务所的知识产权律师，他说对美国的专利、商标与版权保护不周的结果，导致美国经济体系每年损失800亿美元的营业额给剽窃者，并有25万个工作流失。电脑业因非法盗拷软件损失超过每年40亿美元。盗版的电影、书籍、唱片每年也侵蚀娱乐业40亿美元的收入。



(6) 现在知识产权占了美国25%的出口（8年前只有12%），布什政府的贸易政策开始重视国际侵权行为的问题。美国国际贸易委员会是专门处理美国公司控告贸易不公的机构，其手边正在处理创记录的案件（去年有38件）。ITC主委Anne Brunsdale 说：“概念上的财产已经取代农产品和重机械，成为世界贸易争端的新温床。”



(7) 其中一个原因是很多国家对知识产权仅提供微不足道的保障。现在它们了解这种宽松的政策会让它们自绝于世界贸易之外，也妨碍了本土产业的发展，各地区国家都开始修改有关专利、版权与商标的法律。马来西亚、埃及、中国、土耳其、巴西甚至苏联都在最近公布新作法，要不就实施新法，要不就加强目前的保护措施。为了在一个自由贸易条约的提案上[译注；即NAFTA]得到美国国会的支持，墨西哥在上个月宣示将商标许可的年限加倍成为10年，而且第一次将专利保护延伸到药物食品领域。



(8)不理睬这个趋势的国家麻烦可大了。布什政府在4月将印度与泰国列入商务部的观察名单，可能将对于它们对知识产权的随便处置予以报复。在被认为是侵权最严重的泰国，Lotus 1-2-3电子表格软件的盗版品只卖相当于50美元的价格，而不是原价500美元。新电影如戴维" 林奇的《我心狂野》，其录像带在美国尚未问世，在此地已可以一盘4美元价格买到。



(9) 当知识产权更值钱，保护更周到后，人们自然更愿意制造新知识产权，证据是：新的专利、商标与版权申请案迭创新高。去年美国就有17.47万件新专利，比1985年高39% 。版权注册则达到64.3万件，比起1971到1975年总数的40.1万件还多。在其他国家，注册数同样上升。在日本政府表现出更严格执行法律的意图后，专利申请件数在1980至1988年间几乎增长一倍。在苦等29年后，得克萨斯州仪器最近在日本拿到了集成电路的基本专利，使得这家美国公司每年可自日本芯片制造商处获得额外的5亿美元收入。



(10) 知识产权保护会不会太严苛？也许。依赖快速交换点子与累积进步发迹的电脑软件业，害怕严格执行专利权可能让创作冷却而扼杀了增长。今年较早时，最大的调制解调器厂商Hayes Microcomputer 自硅谷三家公司赢得1100万美元的损害赔偿，因为它们使用了Hayes的收发信息软件。这个判决令软件设计师心惊，害怕自己的软件可能只因为太像别人的软件而让自己进了法庭。该产业也担心涵盖的范围。版权和专利可以用来保护软件在荧幕上呈现出来的“外观和感觉”吗？这类问题的焦点，正集中在受到密切观察的苹果电脑业。苹果控告微软与惠普公司抄袭它的麦金托什软件。



(11) 这类对于知识产权的争议曾一度是法律上最深奥的课题。现在不是了。早点习惯吧，因为它们在未来只会更受到关注。Lisa Raines 是华盛顿“工业生物科技学会”的总顾问与主任。她说：“专利是产业界最重要的东西。没有了它就没有人要投资和发明。” 正当世界的产业渐渐降低对实质材料的依赖，却增加对人类创意的依赖时，对于知识产权可靠的保护将成为世界商业的中心议题。