Are Software Patents Evil?
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</td > --> March 2006 (This essay is derived from a talk at Google.) A few weeks ago I found to my surprise that I'd been granted four <a href="http://paulgraham.infogami.com/blog/morepatents">patents .
</td> --> 2006 年 3 月（本文摘自 Google 的一次演讲。）几周前，我惊讶地发现我获得了四项<a href="http://paulgraham.infogami.com/blog/morepatents">专利 。
This was all the more surprising because I'd only applied for three.
这更令人惊讶，因为我只申请了三个。
The patents aren't mine, of
专利不是我的
course.
当然。
They were assigned to Viaweb, and became Yahoo's when they bought us.
他们被分配到 Viaweb，并在收购我们后成为雅虎旗下的公司。
But the news set me thinking about the question of software patents generally.
但这个消息让我开始思考软件专利问题。
Patents are a hard problem.
专利是一个难题。
I've had to advise most of the startups we've funded about them, and despite years of experience I'm still not always sure I'm giving the right advice.
我必须为我们资助的大多数初创公司提供有关这些建议的建议，尽管拥有多年的经验，但我仍然不能总是确定我给出的建议是否正确。
One thing I do feel pretty certain of is that if you're against
我确实确信的一件事是，如果你反对
software patents, you're against patents in general.
软件专利，你总体上反对专利。
Gradually our machines consist more and more of software.
渐渐地，我们的机器包含越来越多的软件。
Things that used to be done with levers and cams and gears are now done with loops and trees and closures.
过去用杠杆、凸轮和齿轮完成的事情现在用环、树和闭合件完成。
There's nothing special about physical embodiments of control systems that should make them patentable, and the software equivalent not.
控制系统的物理实施例并没有什么特别之处，应该使其可以获得专利，而软件则不然。
Unfortunately, patent law is inconsistent on this point.
不幸的是，专利法在这一点上并不一致。
Patent
专利
law in most countries says that algorithms aren't patentable.
大多数国家的法律规定算法不可申请专利。
This rule is left over from a time when "algorithm" meant something like the Sieve of Eratosthenes.
这条规则是从“算法”意味着类似埃拉托色尼筛子的时代遗留下来的。
In 1800, people could not see as readily as we can that a great many patents on mechanical objects were really patents on the algorithms they embodied.
1800 年，人们无法像我们一样轻易地看到，机械物体的大量专利实际上是它们所体现的算法的专利。
Patent lawyers still have to pretend that's what they're doing when they patent algorithms.
专利律师在为算法申请专利时仍然必须假装这就是他们正在做的事情。
You must not use the word "algorithm" in
您不得在中使用“算法”一词
the title of a patent application, just as you must not use the word "essays" in the title of a book.
专利申请的标题，就像书名中不得使用“论文”一词一样。
If you want to patent an algorithm, you have to frame it as a computer system executing that algorithm.
如果你想为一种算法申请专利，你必须将其设计为执行该算法的计算机系统。
Then it's mechanical; phew.
然后是机械的；唷。
The default euphemism for algorithm is "system and method." Try a patent search for that phrase and see how many results you get.
算法的默认委婉说法是“系统和方法”。尝试对该短语进行专利搜索，看看您会得到多少结果。
Since software patents are no different from hardware patents,
由于软件专利与硬件专利没有什么不同，
people who say "software patents are evil" are saying simply "patents are evil." So why do so many people complain about software patents specifically?
那些说“软件专利是邪恶的”的人只是在说“专利是邪恶的”。那么为什么这么多人专门抱怨软件专利呢？
I think the problem is more with the patent office than the concept of software patents.
我认为问题更多在于专利局而不是软件专利的概念。
Whenever software meets government, bad things happen, because software changes fast and government changes slow.
每当软件遇到政府时，就会发生不好的事情，因为软件变化很快，而政府变化很慢。
The patent office has been overwhelmed by both the volume and the
专利局因数量和数量而不堪重负
novelty of applications for software patents, and as a result they've made a lot of mistakes.
软件专利申请的新颖性，导致他们犯了很多错误。
The most common is to grant patents that shouldn't be granted.
最常见的是授予不应授予的专利。
To be patentable, an invention has to be more than new.
要获得专利，一项发明必须不仅仅是新颖的。
It also has to be non-obvious.
它也必须是不明显的。
And this, especially, is where the USPTO has been dropping the ball.
这尤其是美国专利商标局一直在失败的地方。
Slashdot has an icon that expresses the problem vividly: a knife and fork with the words "patent pending"
Slashdot 有一个图标形象地表达了问题：一把刀叉，上面写着“专利申请中”
superimposed.
叠加。
The scary thing is, this is the only icon they have for patent stories.
可怕的是，这是他们唯一的专利故事图标。
Slashdot readers now take it for granted that a story about a patent will be about a bogus patent.
Slashdot 读者现在理所当然地认为，有关专利的故事将是有关虚假专利的。
That's how bad the problem has become.
这就是问题变得多么严重的原因。
The problem with Amazon's notorious one-click patent, for example, is not that it's a software patent, but that it's obvious.
例如，亚马逊臭名昭著的一键式专利的问题不在于它是一项软件专利，而在于它是显而易见的。
Any online store that kept people's shipping addresses would have
任何保留人们送货地址的在线商店都会有
implemented this.
实施了这一点。
The reason Amazon did it first was not that they were especially smart, but because they were one of the earliest sites with enough clout to force customers to log in before they could buy something.
亚马逊首先这样做的原因并不是因为他们特别聪明，而是因为他们是最早有足够影响力迫使客户登录才能购买东西的网站之一。
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