441: When Patents Attack! - This American Life
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00:00 00:00 Transcript Share This American Life Life Partners How to Listen Episodes Recommended About Overview Staff Announcements Fellowships Jobs Music Make Radio On The Road FAQ Submissions Merch Contact Us Our Other Shows Merch Follow Us Life Partners Subscribe to our newsletter Full episode Toggle Audio and Transcript Sync Transcript | Episode #441 | July 22, 2011 441: When Patents Attack!
00:00 00:00 文字记录 分享此 美国生活 生活伙伴 如何收听 剧集 推荐 关于 概述 员工公告 奖学金 工作 音乐 在路上制作电台 常见问题解答 提交 商品 联系我们 我们的其他节目 商品 关注我们 生活伙伴 订阅我们的时事通讯 整集 切换音频和文字记录同步 文字记录 | 内容第 441 集 | 2011 年 7 月 22 日 441：专利来袭！
Note: This American Life is produced for the ear and designed to be heard.
注：《美国生活》是为耳朵而制作的，旨在让人们听到。
If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page.
如果可以的话，我们强烈建议您收听音频，其中包括页面上没有的情感和重点。
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
文字记录是使用语音识别软件和人工转录员结合生成的，可能包含错误。
Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
请在印刷版引用前检查相应的音频。
Prologue Ira Glass Back during the rise of the dot coms and the internet, Jeff Kelling and a few of his friends were working as programmers together at this company in Dallas.
序言 Ira Glass 回到网络泡沫和互联网兴起时期，杰夫·凯林 (Jeff Kelling) 和他的几个朋友在达拉斯的这家公司一起担任程序员。
And they decided they wanted to get together the way the tech geeks were doing all over the world at the time and come up with an idea for their own internet company to start.
他们决定像当时世界各地的科技极客那样聚集在一起，想出一个想法来创办自己的互联网公司。
One of my business partners, Andy, his wife had just had a baby, and we started thinking about photo sharing.
我的一位商业伙伴安迪（Andy），他的妻子刚刚生了孩子，我们开始考虑分享照片。
Andy could share his photos of his new baby with the grandparents that live across the state.
安迪可以与居住在全州各地的祖父母分享他的新生儿的照片。
And this is 1999.
这是1999年。
This is before Flickr, this is before Shutterfly.
这是在 Flickr 之前，这是在 Shutterfly 之前。
But Jeff and his friends, they were not the first people to try to make a business out of photo sharing.
但杰夫和他的朋友们并不是第一批尝试通过照片共享开展业务的人。
There were other companies out there trying to make a go of that.
还有其他公司试图利用这一点。
And it is not easy.
这并不容易。
It took Jeff and his partners years-- working nights, working weekends-- until finally in 2006, their startup was doing well enough that they could all quit their day jobs and do that full-time.
杰夫和他的合伙人花了数年时间——晚上工作、周末工作——终于在 2006 年，他们的初创公司发展得足够好，他们都可以辞掉日常工作，全职做这件事。
Their company was called FotoTime-- that's FotoTime with an F.
他们的公司叫做 FotoTime——FotoTime 带有 F。
Just as they were living the dream, entrepreneurship, their own business, until--
就在他们实现梦想、创业、自己创业的时候，直到——
We got a letter in May of 2008.
2008 年 5 月，我们收到一封信。
And it wasn't a friendly letter.
这不是一封友好的信。
I mean, if you take a letter from the IRS that says, we're going to audit you, this letter was even less friendly than that.
我的意思是，如果你收到国税局的一封信，上面写着我们将对你进行审计，这封信甚至比那封信更不友好。
It pretty much said, you're in violation of three of the patents that our company holds.
可以说，你们侵犯了我们公司拥有的三项专利。
You must contact us immediately to arrange payment and settlement, or we will be taking you to court.
您必须立即联系我们安排付款和结算，否则我们将把您告上法庭。
And we were wondering, what is all this?
我们想知道，这一切是什么？
I mean, this whole thing was developed internally.
我的意思是，这整件事都是内部开发的。
It's not like we went through the patent office and stole people's ideas.
我们并不是通过专利局窃取了人们的想法。
And it's also not like we were the first to do this.
而且我们也不是第一个这样做的。
And we looked up this lawsuit online and we saw there were over 130 companies named in this lawsuit.
我们在网上查了一下这起诉讼，发现有超过 130 家公司被点名。
All the big names were there-- Yahoo, which owns Flickr, as well as Shutterfly and Photobucket, and lots of small companies like Jeff's as well.
所有大牌公司都在那里——雅虎（它拥有 Flickr）、Shutterfly 和 Photobucket，以及许多像杰夫这样的小公司。
The company suing Jeff was called FotoMedia.
起诉杰夫的公司名为 FotoMedia。
Jeff was FotoTime with an F, this was FotoMedia with an F.
Jeff 是带有 F 的 FotoTime，这是带有 F 的 FotoMedia。
And one thing that was odd, they weren't actually a competitor of Jeff's.
奇怪的是，他们实际上并不是杰夫的竞争对手。
They didn't have a website where you could upload or share photos.
他们没有可以上传或分享照片的网站。
And it wasn't clear to Jeff what in the world they thought he'd stolen from them.
杰夫并不清楚他们到底偷了他们的什么。
Had he accidentally come up with a way to upload files, or maybe see photos online, or do the credit card transactions that already somebody had some sort of patent on?
他是否无意中想出了一种上传文件的方法，或者可能在网上查看照片，或者进行已经有人拥有某种专利的信用卡交易的方法？
Or was it that he hadn't stolen anything?
还是他根本就没有偷过什么东西？
They were just looking for a payout, scamming him for some money?
他们只是为了赔钱，骗他钱？
And what was especially galling to Jeff, when he called them to ask, what am I stealing from you guys?
当杰夫打电话给他们询问“我从你们那里偷了什么”时，最让杰夫感到恼火的是什么呢？
They wouldn't tell him.
他们不会告诉他。
That was a question they wouldn't answer.
这是他们不会回答的问题。
They said they wouldn't answer that until we got into court.
他们说在我们进入法庭之前他们不会回答这个问题。
So they wouldn't even identify what parts of our business or what they thought we were doing to use their technology.
因此，他们甚至不知道我们业务的哪些部分或他们认为我们正在做什么来使用他们的技术。
But to go to court to answer that question was going to cost money, a lot of money.
但上法庭回答这个问题需要花钱，很多钱。
It was between $2 and $5 million.
金额在 2 至 500 万美元之间。
That's more than our company could handle, honestly.
老实说，这超出了我们公司的处理能力。
We knew we had to settle this thing somehow.
我们知道我们必须以某种方式解决这件事。
There would be no more FotoTime today if we had to do that.
如果我们不得不这样做的话，今天就不会有 FotoTime 了。
Amazingly, it wasn't just Jeff and the other companies getting sued over these three patents who were upset.
令人惊讶的是，不仅仅是杰夫和其他因这三项专利而被起诉的公司感到不安。
Out there in the world was an inventor who came up with the original ideas that got patented for two of these three patents, and he wasn't that happy about the lawsuit either.
世界上有一位发明家提出了原创想法，并为这三项专利中的两项获得了专利，他对这场诉讼也不太高兴。
The guy's name was David Rose and he was issued these patents back when he started his own photo-sharing company back in the mid '90s, just a couple years before Jeff Kelling started his.
这个人的名字叫大卫·罗斯 (David Rose)，他在 90 年代中期创办自己的照片共享公司时就获得了这些专利，而就在杰夫·凯林 (Jeff Kelling) 创办自己的照片共享公司的几年前。
And he had gotten the patents in part because having a patent was just one of those things you did to raise money from investors, a check box you checked to prove you were serious and to protect yourself from some company swooping in and stealing your ideas.
他获得专利的部分原因是拥有专利只是你从投资者那里筹集资金所做的事情之一，你勾选一个复选框以证明你是认真的，并保护自己免受某些公司的突然袭击并窃取你的想法。
He sold his company in 2000 and the patents that he got along with it.
2000 年，他卖掉了自己的公司以及随之而来的专利。
He thought the people who bought his company would expand the company and make it prosper.
他认为收购他公司的人会扩大公司规模并使其繁荣。
Hopefully, turn it into a household name.
希望它能成为家喻户晓的名字。
He has some problems with what they chose to do instead.
他对他们选择做什么有一些疑问。
He talked to This American Life producer Alex Blumberg and reporter Laura Sydell.
他与《美国生活》的制片人亚历克斯·布隆伯格和记者劳拉·西德尔进行了交谈。
It's the hoarding and non-operating of the technology that doesn't feel good.
技术的囤积和不操作让人感觉不好。
Because they didn't become the brand that they could have become.
因为他们没有成为他们本可以成为的品牌。
They had the protection.
他们有保护。
They could have built Flickr.
他们本可以建立 Flickr。
Right.
正确的。
And instead they waited for somebody else to build Flickr, and then they sued Flickr?
相反，他们等待其他人建立 Flickr，然后起诉 Flickr？
Yes.
是的。
Ira Glass Companies that make no products, but go around suing other companies that do make products over supposed patent infringement are so common in Silicon Valley these days that there's a derogatory term for it-- trolls, or patent trolls.
Ira Glass 公司不生产任何产品，却四处起诉其他生产产品的公司，指控其涉嫌专利侵权，这种情况在硅谷非常常见，以至于有一个贬义词来形容这种现象——巨魔或专利巨魔。
David Rose explains, trolls--
大卫·罗斯解释说，巨魔们——
You don't know that there's one under the bridge.
你不知道桥下有一个。
They pop up.
他们突然出现。
They have unreasonable demands.
他们有无理要求。
They can charge monopoly tolls or monopoly rents.
他们可以收取垄断性通行费或垄断性租金。
So the guy who came up with two of these patents doesn't want the lawsuit and the guy getting sued for the patents doesn't want the lawsuit.
因此，提出其中两项专利的人不想提起诉讼，而因专利而被起诉的人也不想提起诉讼。
And yet, the lawsuit happens.
然而，诉讼还是发生了。
FotoMedia, by the way, denies being a patent troll.
顺便说一句，FotoMedia 否认自己是专利流氓。
Its CEO told us that patent troll is a term that people throw around very loosely when they're in litigation over patent rights.
其首席执行官告诉我们，专利流氓是人们在专利权诉讼时非常随意地使用的一个术语。
As far as we can tell, and not a lot of this information is public, most of the companies being sued ended up doing what Jeff did, and agreed to pay FotoMedia money.
据我们所知，并且公开的信息并不多，大多数被起诉的公司最终都做了 Jeff 所做的事情，并同意向 FotoMedia 支付费用。
Some of them were put out of business.
其中一些被停业。
Jeff felt like he had no choice but to settle.
杰夫觉得他别无选择，只能安定下来。
He told Laura and Alex that reaching a settlement ended up taking six months, a very rough six months.
他告诉劳拉和亚历克斯，达成和解最终花了六个月的时间，非常艰难的六个月。
It feels like if they're not reasonable, OK, our venture of 10 years is going to be gone.
感觉如果他们不讲道理，好吧，我们十年的冒险就会消失。
They have to be reasonable or we will just plain be gone.
他们必须是合理的，否则我们就会消失。
And we're talking about 10 years of our life.
我们正在谈论我们生命中的十年。
You know, honestly, as I'm talking about it now, it's kind of raising my heartbeat a little bit because I just remember how I personally felt.
你知道，老实说，当我现在谈论这件事时，这让我的心跳有点加快，因为我只记得我个人的感受。
Just the huge amount of anxiety and lack of control over the whole situation.
只是巨大的焦虑和对整个局势缺乏控制。
It was just an awful feeling.
这真是一种可怕的感觉。
Can I ask what that final settlement was, how much it was?
请问最后的和解金额是多少？
No. No, unfortunately, part of the terms of our settlement agreement is that we don't discuss the amount.
不。不，不幸的是，我们和解协议的部分条款是我们不讨论金额。
It did, and they knew that.
确实如此，他们也知道这一点。
The settlement they wanted to get was just enough to put us in danger, but not to close us, and I'll stop there.
他们想要达成的和解协议足以让我们陷入危险，但又不会让我们陷入困境，我就到此为止。
Patents are so foundational to the American way of life that they're in the Constitution.
专利是美国生活方式的基础，因此被写入宪法。
Their purpose is quote "to promote the useful arts and sciences." In other words, to get people to share their ideas and inventions.
他们的目的是“促进有用的艺术和科学”。换句话说，让人们分享他们的想法和发明。
To say to somebody like Eli Whitney, OK, you have this amazing invention, the cotton gin.
对伊莱·惠特尼这样的人说，好吧，你有这项了不起的发明，轧棉机。
If you tell everybody how it works and how to make their own, in exchange, any time somebody uses the idea, you get paid.
如果你告诉每个人它是如何工作的以及如何自己制作，作为交换，每当有人使用这个想法时，你就会得到报酬。
If there were no such thing as a patent, Eli Whitney would have to keep his invention hidden in a dark room with no windows.
如果没有专利这样的东西，伊莱·惠特尼就不得不把他的发明藏在一个没有窗户的黑暗房间里。
Nobody would steal the idea, and then people would bring him their cotton, and he'd spit it out for them all processed on the other side.
没有人会窃取这个想法，然后人们会把棉花带给他，他会把棉花吐出来，然后在另一边加工。
Instead of that, we had thousands of cotton gins everywhere.
相反，我们到处都有数千台轧棉机。
Patents make it safe to share and to innovate.
专利使共享和创新变得安全。
But today, lots of investors and innovators in Silicon Valley, maybe the majority would tell you, the patent system is doing the exact opposite of what it's supposed to.
但今天，硅谷的很多投资者和创新者，也许大多数人会告诉你，专利制度的作用与它应该做的完全相反。
It's not promoting innovation, it's stifling it.
它不是在促进创新，而是在扼杀创新。
Because patent lawsuits are on the rise.
因为专利诉讼呈上升趋势。
Patent trolls are on the move.
专利流氓正在行动。
Patent lawsuits are so common now that it's hard to find even one semi-successful startup in Silicon Valley that has not been hit with a suit.
现在专利诉讼非常普遍，以至于在硅谷很难找到一家没有遭遇过诉讼的半成功初创公司。
Which slows innovation, makes it harder for companies to prosper, hurts our global competitiveness-- is this getting big enough for you?
这会减缓创新，让公司更难繁荣，损害我们的全球竞争力——这对你来说足够大了吗？
Costs us all more money when we buy the stuff these companies sell.
当我们购买这些公司销售的东西时，我们要花更多的钱。
From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life distributed by Public Radio International.
这是来自芝加哥 WBEZ 的《This American Life》，由国际公共广播电台发行。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Today on our show, "When Patents Attack." Our guides this hour are going to be NPR correspondent Laura Sydell and This American Life producer and Planet Money co-host Alex Blumberg.
今天我们的节目“当专利受到攻击时”。我们这一小时的导游将是 NPR 记者 Laura Sydell 和《This American Life》制片人兼 Planet Money 联合主持人 Alex Blumberg。
OK, take it away, guys.
好吧，把它拿走，伙计们。
The term patent troll was first coined by a guy named Peter Detkin, who at the time was one of the top lawyers at one of the biggest tech companies in the world, the computer chip maker Intel.
“专利流氓”一词最初是由彼得·德特金（Peter Detkin）创造的，他当时是世界上最大的科技公司之一——计算机芯片制造商英特尔的顶级律师之一。
Around 1999, Intel found itself in the position that Jeff Kelling-- the guy we heard from at the top of the show-- was in.
1999 年左右，英特尔发现自己处于杰夫·凯林（Jeff Kelling）（我们在展会上听到的那个人）所处的位置。
Getting approached by a company that didn't build anything.
一家没有建造任何东西的公司接洽。
Simply saying, I have a patent that covers semiconductors generally.
简单地说，我拥有一项涵盖半导体的专利。
You make a semiconductor, and therefore, you should pay me some money.
你是做半导体的，所以你应该付给我一些钱。
And there were a lot of claims like that.
类似的说法还有很多。
One lawsuit in particular made Peter Detkin so mad that he called the lawyer who filed it a quote "patent extortionist." The lawyer turned around and sued Peter Detkin for libel.
其中一项诉讼尤其让彼得·德特金 (Peter Detkin) 非常生气，他称提起诉讼的律师是“专利勒索者”。律师转而起诉彼得·德特金诽谤。
So Detkin needed a better name.
所以德特金需要一个更好的名字。
So I had a contest inside Intel.
所以我在英特尔内部进行了一场竞赛。
The contest itself was named "The Terrorist." And these suggestions-- we got a lot of suggestions, but none really fit.
比赛本身被命名为“恐怖分子”。这些建议——我们收到了很多建议，但没有一个真正合适。
But at the time my daughter was, I think, four or five and she liked playing with those little troll dolls.
但当时我的女儿，我想，四五岁，她喜欢和那些小巨魔娃娃一起玩。
The original one, in fact, is still in my office.
事实上，原来的那张仍然在我的办公室里。
And so I turned to her and I said, oh, the story of a troll kind of fits because the whole Billy Goats Gruff thing.
所以我转向她，我说，哦，巨魔的故事有点适合，因为整个比利山羊粗暴的事情。
It's someone lying under a bridge they didn't build, demanding payment from anybody who passed.
有人躺在一座不是他们建造的桥下，要求任何经过的人付款。
I said, how about a patent troll?
我说，专利流氓怎么样？
The name stuck, and if anything, the problem of patent trolls just got worse.
这个名字一直沿用至今，如果说有什么不同的话，那就是专利流氓问题变得更加严重。
From 2004 to 2009, the number of patent infringement lawsuits jumped by 70%.
从2004年到2009年，专利侵权诉讼数量猛增70%。
Licensing fee requests, like what happened to Peter Detkin and to FotoTime, went up 650%.
许可费请求（例如 Peter Detkin 和 FotoTime 的情况）上涨了 650%。
Today, pretty much any time you talk to a computer or tech person in Silicon Valley and the subject of patents comes up, everyone groans.
如今，几乎每次你与硅谷的计算机或技术人员交谈时，只要提到专利这个话题，每个人都会抱怨不已。
I hear those groans a lot.
我经常听到那些呻吟。
I live out here in San Francisco, and just to get a flavor of this, the other day I went down to a park called South Park around noon.
我住在旧金山，为了体验一下这种味道，有一天中午我去了一个叫南方公园的公园。
It's a place where a lot of tech workers eat their lunch.
这是很多科技工作者吃午餐的地方。
And the sentiment is universal.
这种情绪是普遍的。
If I say patents system, what do you say?
如果我说专利制度，你会说什么？
I think it's just a way for lawyers to make money and basically, it's a killer for creativity.
我认为这只是律师赚钱的一种方式，基本上，这是创造力的杀手。
Complicated, broken.
复杂，破碎。
Man 3 It's basically a flimflam game that anybody who knows how to take advantage of it is doing.
Man 3 这基本上是一个任何知道如何利用它的人都在做的骗人的游戏。
Do you kind of groan when you hear the word?
当你听到这个词时，你是否会发出呻吟声？
I do, yeah.
我愿意，是的。
You want to hear a groan for the radio?
你想听收音机里的呻吟声吗？
If I say the word patent troll, does any company or any entity come to mind in particular?
如果我说“专利流氓”这个词，您会特别想到任何公司或实体吗？
Like Nathan Myhrvold, I guess, and whatever his company is.
我想，就像内森·梅尔沃德（Nathan Myhrvold）一样，无论他的公司是什么。
It has some stupid name, like Associate Associates or something like that, I don't know.
它有一些愚蠢的名字，比如 Associate Associates 或类似的名字，我不知道。
The name he's searching for is Intellectual Ventures, the company Nathan Myhrvold founded in 2000.
他正在寻找的名字是 Intellectual Ventures，这是 Nathan Myhrvold 于 2000 年创立的公司。
Nathan Myhrvold used to be the chief technology officer at Microsoft, where he made a lot of money, hundreds of millions of dollars.
内森·梅尔沃德（Nathan Myhrvold）曾经是微软的首席技术官，他在那里赚了很多钱，有数亿美元。
Even if you haven't heard of Intellectual Ventures, you might have heard of Nathan Myhrvold.
即使您没有听说过 Intellectual Ventures，您也可能听说过 Nathan Myhrvold。
My guest tonight has written a six-volume book on cutting-edge food made with modern science.
今晚我的客人写了一本关于用现代科学制作的尖端食品的六卷书。
Please welcome Nathan Myhrvold.
欢迎内森·梅尔沃德。
This is Myhrvold on the television show The Colbert Report talking about another one of his ventures, an opus on the science of cooking, which teaches you how to do things like make ice cream with liquid nitrogen.
这是梅尔沃德在电视节目《科尔伯特报告》中谈论他的另一项事业，这是一本关于烹饪科学的著作，它教你如何做一些事情，比如用液氮制作冰淇淋。
Myhrvold is the kind of guy the press loves to profile.
米尔沃德是媒体喜欢报道的那种人。
You are a polymath.
你是一位博学者。
You're a Renaissance man.
你是文艺复兴时期的人。
You're a world barbecue champion now.
你现在是世界烧烤冠军了。
You've discovered T.
你发现了T。
rex fossils.
霸王龙化石。
You've studied quantum physics with Stephen Hawking.
您已经跟随史蒂芬·霍金学习了量子物理学。
And you have a new six-volume, 40-pound, $625 book called Modernist Cuisine.
你还有一本新书，共 6 卷，重 40 磅，售价 625 美元，名为《现代主义烹饪》。
But this image of Nathan Myhrvold who gives TED talks and generally plays the role of an avuncular elder statesman for the tech industry is at odds with the image of his company, Intellectual Ventures.
但内森·梅尔沃德 (Nathan Myhrvold) 在 TED 演讲中的形象与他的公司 Intellectual Ventures 的形象不一致。
There's an influential blog in Silicon Valley called Techdirt, which regularly refers to Intellectual Ventures as a patent troll.
硅谷有一个颇具影响力的博客，名为 Techdirt，经常将 Intellectual Ventures 称为专利流氓。
Another blog, IPWatchdog, called Intellectual Ventures patent troll public enemy number one.
另一个博客 IPWatchdog 将 Intellectual Ventures 专利流氓称为头号公敌。
And the Wall Street Journal's law blog had an article about Intellectual Ventures titled "Innovative Invention Company Or Giant Patent Troll?"
《华尔街日报》的法律博客有一篇关于知识产权风险投资的文章，题为“创新发明公司还是巨型专利巨魔？”
These articles talk about how IV has amassed one of the largest patent portfolios in existence.
这些文章讨论了 IV 如何积累现有最大的专利组合之一。
How it's going around the technology companies demanding money to license these patents.
科技公司索要资金来许可这些专利的情况如何。
But the thing is, people at companies that have been approached by Intellectual Ventures won't talk about it.
但问题是，Intellectual Ventures 接触过的公司里的人不会谈论这件事。
There is a lot of fear about Intellectual Ventures.
人们对智力风险投资有很多恐惧。
You don't want to make yourself a target.
你不想让自己成为目标。
This is Chris Sacca, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist in Silicon Valley who was an early investor in companies like Twitter and FanBridge and lots of other startups.
这是 Chris Sacca，硅谷的一位企业家和风险投资家，他是 Twitter 和 FanBridge 等公司以及许多其他初创公司的早期投资者。
He wouldn't say if Intellectual Ventures had been in contact with his companies.
他不愿透露 Intellectual Ventures 是否曾与他的公司联系过。
I tried to put you in touch with other people in this community to talk to you about this and they almost uniformly said they couldn't talk to you.
我试图让您与这个社区中的其他人联系，与您讨论此事，但他们几乎一致表示无法与您交谈。
They're afraid to.
他们害怕。
And we should just cut in here and say when Chris says, "this community," he's talking about the community of multimillionaire venture capitalists that he hangs around with.
我们应该在这里插话，当克里斯说“这个社区”时，他指的是他经常光顾的百万富翁风险投资家社区。
Not a timid crowd.
不是胆怯的人群。
Back to Chris.
回到克里斯。
They almost uniformly said they couldn't talk to you.
他们几乎一致表示无法与您交谈。
They're afraid to.
他们害怕。
And they didn't even hem and haw about it.
他们甚至没有对此嗤之以鼻。
They just said, they're afraid to talk about this issue on the record.
他们只是说，他们不敢公开谈论这个问题。
It's such a mismatched fight that your best defensive option is security by obscurity.
这是一场不匹配的战斗，你最好的防御选择就是默默无闻。
They have the potential to literally obliterate startups.
他们有可能真正消灭初创公司。
Intellectual Ventures is a company that invests in invention.
Intellectual Ventures 是一家投资发明的公司。
This, of course, is Nathan Myhrvold.
这当然是内森·梅尔沃德。
I went to talk to him and spent a day at his company.
我去跟他聊了聊，在他的公司待了一天。
And not surprisingly, Nathan Myhrvold had a very different story about what he's up to.
毫不奇怪，内森·梅尔沃德对于他的所作所为有一个非常不同的故事。
Are you a patent troll?
您是专利流氓吗？
Nathan Myhrvold Well, that's a term that has been used by people to mean someone they don't like who has patents.
内森·梅尔沃德（Nathan Myhrvold）：嗯，这个术语被人们用来指代他们不喜欢的拥有专利的人。
I think you would find almost anyone who stands up for their patent rights has been called a patent troll.
我想你会发现几乎所有维护专利权的人都被称为专利流氓。
Intellectual Ventures says Myhrvold is just the opposite.
Intellectual Ventures 表示，Myhrvold 的情况恰恰相反。
They're on the side of inventors.
他们站在发明家一边。
They pay inventors for patents.
他们向发明人支付专利费用。
They gather these patents together into this huge warehouse of invention that companies can use if they want.
他们将这些专利集中到这个巨大的发明仓库中，公司可以根据需要使用它们。
Sort of like a department store for patents.
有点像专利百货商店。
Whatever technology you're looking for, Intellectual Ventures has it.
无论您需要什么技术，Intellectual Ventures 都能满足您的需求。
And when reporters come to visit Myhrvold to underline this idea that IV is all about invention, he takes them to see this.
当记者们来拜访米尔沃德并强调 IV 就是发明的想法时，他带他们看到了这一点。
Out here we're standing on the brink of our machine shop.
我们正站在机械车间的边缘。
I'm on a tour with Geoff Deane, who runs the Intellectual Ventures Invention Lab.
我正在与杰夫·迪恩（Geoff Deane）一起参观，他负责智力风险投资发明实验室。
About 100 people work here.
大约有 100 人在这里工作。
The lab is massive.
实验室很大。
There are people walking around in white lab coats mixing chemicals in beakers and looking at stuff under microscopes.
人们穿着白色实验室外套走来走去，在烧杯中混合化学物质，并在显微镜下观察东西。
There's a machine shop, a nanotechnology section.
有一个机械车间，一个纳米技术部门。
It's like a playground for scientists and engineers.
它就像科学家和工程师的游乐场。
And if you ask them what they've invented so far, there's a couple things they point to.
如果你问他们到目前为止发明了什么，他们会指出一些事情。
The nuclear technology, they say, is safer and greener than existing technologies.
他们说，核技术比现有技术更安全、更环保。
A cooler that can keep vaccines cold for months without electricity.
一种无需电力即可将疫苗冷藏数月的冷却器。
And the world's most high-tech mosquito zapper, which senses mosquitoes from hundreds of feet away by detecting the speed of their wings.
还有世界上最高科技的灭蚊器，它通过检测数百英尺外的蚊子翅膀的速度来感知蚊子。
Well, on one side you have a reflector.
嗯，一侧有一个反光镜。
On the other side you have something that's looking down range at the reflector.
在另一边，有一个东西可以俯视反射器。
And any time a mosquito flies between there, it actually finds the mosquito and shoots it out of the air as fast as you can imagine.
每当蚊子飞过那里时，它实际上都会找到蚊子并以你可以想象的速度将其从空中射出。
So it takes about a tenth of a second for it to find the mosquito, identify it as a mosquito, and kill it.
所以它大约需要十分之一秒的时间才能找到蚊子，识别出它是蚊子，然后杀死它。
Like a missile defense shield for mosquitoes.
就像蚊子的导弹防御盾。
But the fact is, this lab is a tiny fraction of what the company does.
但事实是，这个实验室只是该公司所做工作的一小部分。
Intellectual Ventures has received a little over 1,000 patents on stuff they've come up with here, which pales in comparison to the more than 30,000 patents they've bought from other people.
Intellectual Ventures 已经获得了 1,000 多项他们在这里发明的专利，这与他们从其他人那里购买的 30,000 多项专利相比显得相形见绌。
In fact, nothing that's come out of this lab, not the mosquito zapper, not the nuclear technology, nothing has made it into commercial use.
事实上，这个实验室没有任何成果，无论是灭蚊器，还是核技术，都没有投入商业用途。
But Intellectual Ventures says, that's not our job.
但 Intellectual Ventures 表示，这不是我们的工作。
Our job, they say, is to encourage invention.
他们说，我们的工作是鼓励发明。
For example, imagine an inventor out there, someone with a brilliant idea, a breakthrough.
例如，想象一下那里有一位发明家，有一个绝妙的想法，一个突破。
This inventor has a patent, but still, companies are stealing his idea and he doesn't have the money or legal savvy to stop them.
这位发明家拥有专利，但仍有公司在窃取他的想法，而他没有金钱或法律头脑来阻止他们。
That's where Intellectual Ventures comes in.
这就是智力风险投资的用武之地。
They buy this inventor's patent and make sure that companies who are using the idea pay for it.
他们购买该发明人的专利，并确保使用该想法的公司为其付费。
A lot of people I met at IV told me some version of this story.
我在 IV 遇到的很多人都告诉了我这个故事的一些版本。
We are promoting innovation by supporting inventors.
我们通过支持发明家来促进创新。
And when I asked for an example of an inventor in this situation, someone with a breakthrough who wasn't getting paid for it, two separate people pointed me to the same guy.
当我询问在这种情况下的发明家的例子时，一个有突破但没有获得报酬的人，两个不同的人向我指出了同一个人。
There's one story I can think of, a gentleman named Chris Crawford.
我能想到一个故事，一位名叫克里斯·克劳福德的绅士。
This is one of the people who mentioned Chris Crawford, Joe Chernesky, a vice president at Intellectual Ventures.
这是提到克里斯·克劳福德（Chris Crawford）的人之一，乔·切尔内斯基（Joe Chernesky），Intellectual Ventures 的副总裁。
The neat thing about Chris is he had no idea how to get money for his patents.
克里斯的妙处在于他不知道如何为他的专利筹集资金。
He had this great idea.
他有这个好主意。
These patents were immensely valuable because every technology company was adopting the technology, yet he didn't know how to get paid.
这些专利非常有价值，因为每个科技公司都在采用这项技术，但他不知道如何获得报酬。
He eventually found Intellectual Ventures, so we bought those patents.
他最终找到了 Intellectual Ventures，所以我们购买了这些专利。
So I figured, I want to talk to this guy.
所以我想，我想和这个人谈谈。
Not so simple.
没那么简单。
It turned out trying to talk to Chris Crawford took us on a five-month odyssey, where things didn't exactly fit the story that Intellectual Ventures was telling us.
事实证明，试图与克里斯·克劳福德交谈让我们经历了长达五个月的冒险之旅，事情与 Intellectual Ventures 告诉我们的故事并不完全相符。
It started when I called Intellectual Ventures to get Chris Crawford's contact info.
当我打电话给 Intellectual Ventures 以获取 Chris Crawford 的联系信息时，事情就开始了。
I got a strange email back in response.
我收到一封奇怪的电子邮件回复。
I was told, "they no longer own Chris Crawford's patent." And I was told, "he probably wouldn't want to talk to me right now because he was in the middle of litigation."
有人告诉我，“他们不再拥有克里斯·克劳福德的专利。”我被告知，“他现在可能不想和我说话，因为他正在进行诉讼。”
That just made us curious, so we started digging around.
这让我们很好奇，所以我们开始四处挖掘。
We found Chris Crawford in Clearwater, Florida.
我们在佛罗里达州克利尔沃特找到了克里斯·克劳福德。
But as predicted, he never responded to our many emails and phone calls.
但正如预料的那样，他从未回复我们的许多电子邮件和电话。
You will never hear from him in this story.
在这个故事中你永远不会听到他的消息。
We were able, though, to locate his patent.
不过，我们能够找到他的专利。
Patent number 5771354.
专利号5771354。
He got it in 1998, back in the relatively early days of the internet.
他在 1998 年得到了它，当时还处于互联网相对早期的时期。
And the way IV explained the patent to us, Chris Crawford invented something that we all do all the time now.
IV 向我们解释该专利的方式是，克里斯·克劳福德发明了我们现在一直在做的事情。
He figured out a way to upgrade the software on your home computer over the internet.
他想出了一种通过互联网升级家用电脑软件的方法。
So in other words, when you turn on your computer and a little box pops up and says, click here to upgrade to the newest version of iTunes, that was Chris Crawford's idea.
换句话说，当你打开电脑时，会弹出一个小框，上面写着“单击此处升级到最新版本的 iTunes”，这就是 Chris Crawford 的想法。
But when we looked at the patent, it seemed to claim a lot more than that.
但当我们查看该专利时，它的要求似乎远不止于此。
The patent says, this invention makes it possible to connect to an online service provider to do a bunch of stuff-- software purchases, online rentals, data backups, information storage.
该专利称，这项发明可以连接到在线服务提供商来执行一系列操作——软件购买、在线租赁、数据备份、信息存储。
The patent makes it seem like this one guy, Chris Crawford, invented a lot of what we do on the internet every day.
这项专利让人觉得克里斯·克劳福德（Chris Crawford）发明了我们每天在互联网上所做的很多事情。
We weren't sure what to make of this, so we turned to an expert.
我们不确定该怎么做，所以我们求助于专家。
You're going to start by looking at the left- and right-hand screens.
您将首先查看左侧和右侧的屏幕。
This is David Martin, who runs a company called M-CAM.
我是大卫·马丁 (David Martin)，他经营着一家名为 M-CAM 的公司。
They're hired by governments, banks, businesses, to assess patent quality, which they do with this fancy software program.
他们受雇于政府、银行、企业来评估专利质量，他们使用这款精美的软件程序来评估专利质量。
We asked him to assess Chris Crawford's patent.
我们请他评估克里斯·克劳福德的专利。
Now, if you would, please, just click on the patent number itself, Laura.
现在，劳拉，如果您愿意，请点击专利号本身。
The software program actually scans through millions of patents and analyzes them to see if any of them overlap.
该软件程序实际上扫描了数百万项专利并对其进行分析，以查看其中是否有重叠。
That's a bad number.
这是一个糟糕的数字。
Laura Sydell An idea being patented is supposed to be non-obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art.
Laura Sydell 获得专利的想法对于本领域的普通技术人员来说应该是非显而易见的。
What that means is that you shouldn't be able to get a patent for just a common sense good idea.
这意味着你不应该仅仅因为一个常识性的好主意就获得专利。
It has to be a breakthrough.
它必须是一个突破。
That's correct.
这是正确的。
Laura Sydell In other words, we shouldn't be seeing what we are seeing on David Martin's computer screen.
劳拉·西德尔 换句话说，我们不应该看到我们在大卫·马丁的电脑屏幕上看到的东西。
5,303 patents that were issued while his was being prosecuted, which covered the same material.
在他被起诉期间颁发了 5,303 项专利，涵盖相同的材料。
5,303.
5,303。
And so that means that at the same time that Chris Crawford's patent was getting issued--
所以这意味着克里斯·克劳福德的专利同时被授予——
Only 5,303 other people were pursuing the same thing.
只有 5,303 人在追求同样的事情。
I mean the same thing.
我的意思是一样的。
Laura Sydell David Martin may be exaggerating a little here for effect, but as we look through some of the patents that are on the screen, the resemblances are pretty clear.
劳拉·西德尔·大卫·马丁（Laura Sydell David Martin）可能为了效果而夸大了一点，但当我们浏览屏幕上的一些专利时，相似之处非常明显。
Remember, Chris Crawford's patent is for quote "an online backup system."
请记住，克里斯·克劳福德的专利是“在线备份系统”。
And on David Martin's computer screen, we see lots of patents with slightly different language, but covering essentially the same idea.
在大卫·马丁的电脑屏幕上，我们看到许多专利的语言略有不同，但基本上涵盖了相同的想法。
For example, patent number 6003044, for quote "efficiently backing up files using multiple computer systems." Patent 5933653, for quote "mirroring data in a remote data storage system."
例如，专利号 6003044，引用“使用多个计算机系统有效备份文件”。专利 5933653，引用“远程数据存储系统中的镜像数据”。
And then, there were three different patents with three different patent numbers, but that all had the same title quote, "system and method for backing up computer files over a wide area computer network."
然后，出现了三项不同的专利，具有三个不同的专利号，但都有相同的标题引用：“通过广域计算机网络备份计算机文件的系统和方法”。
David Martin says that when he first started looking into this stuff and saw all these patents that were granted for essentially the same thing--
大卫·马丁说，当他第一次开始研究这些东西时，发现所有这些专利本质上都是为同一件事授予的——
We thought that would be an anomaly.
我们认为这将是一个异常情况。
And then we were told, oh no, it's not an anomaly.
然后我们被告知，哦不，这不是异常现象。
That happens.
就会发生这种情况。
So that's what got us into the rabbit hole you're about to see.
这就是让我们陷入你将要看到的兔子洞的原因。
Which is to say, well, let's see how many times that happens.
也就是说，好吧，让我们看看这种情况发生了多少次。
And as I've testified in Congress, that happens about 30% of the time in US patents.
正如我在国会作证的那样，这种情况在美国专利中发生的概率约为 30%。
That is, 30% of US patents are essentially for things that have already been invented.
也就是说，30%的美国专利本质上是针对已经发明的东西。
So, for example, toast becomes the thermal refreshening of a bread product.
例如，吐司就成为面包产品的热提神剂。
These are real patents?
这些是真正的专利吗？
David Martin Yes.
大卫·马丁 是的。
There's a patent on toast?
吐司有专利吗？
David Martin Yes, thermally refreshened bread, not on toast.
大卫·马丁 是的，热新鲜面包，而不是吐司。
Ladies and gentlemen, patent number 6080436, bread refreshing method, issued in 2000.
女士们、先生们，专利号6080436，面包保鲜方法，2000年颁发。
And we talked to another expert who told us Chris Crawford's patent was actually similar to the toast patent in one respect.
我们采访了另一位专家，他告诉我们克里斯·克劳福德的专利实际上在某一方面与吐司专利相似。
Rick McLeod is a patent lawyer and former software engineer who we also asked to evaluate Chris Crawford's patent.
Rick McLeod 是一位专利律师和前软件工程师，我们还请他评估 Chris Crawford 的专利。
So he went on a search.
于是他就去寻找。
This is how patent lawyers research this kind of thing.
这就是专利律师研究这种事情的方式。
He looked to see if anyone else in the field was already doing the thing Chris Crawford claimed to invent in 1993 when he first filed his patent.
他想看看这个领域是否有其他人已经在做克里斯·克劳福德 (Chris Crawford) 在 1993 年首次申请专利时声称发明的事情。
There were institutions, both academic and businesses, that used computers in this way.
有些学术机构和企业机构都以这种方式使用计算机。
And I think it's a very interesting collection of things that were well known in the 1980s, with the exception of it adds on the word internet.
我认为这是一个非常有趣的集合，集合了 20 世纪 80 年代众所周知的事物，除了它添加了互联网这个词。
Do you think this patent should have been issued in the first place?
您认为这项专利一开始就应该被授予吗？
No, I don't.
不，我不。
Alex Blumberg And in fact, for a long time, the Patent Office would have agreed with Rick McLeod.
Alex Blumberg 事实上，在很长一段时间里，专利局都会同意 Rick McLeod 的观点。
The Patent Office used to be very reluctant to issue patents for software.
专利局过去非常不愿意颁发软件专利。
For decades, it considered software to be like language.
几十年来，它一直认为软件就像语言。
Software programs were more like books or articles.
软件程序更像是书籍或文章。
You could copyright them, but you couldn't patent them.
你可以为它们申请版权，但你不能为它们申请专利。
They weren't inventions like the cotton gin.
它们不是像轧棉机那样的发明。
But the federal courts stepped in and they started chipping away at this interpretation.
但联邦法院介入并开始削弱这种解释。
There was a big decision in 1994 and another one in 1998, which rejected the Patent Office's view.
1994年和1998年分别做出了一项重大决定，驳回了专利局的观点。
The Patent Office got the memo and a flood of software patents followed.
专利局收到了这份备忘录，随之而来的是大量的软件专利。
A lot of people in Silicon Valley wish that that had never happened, including a very surprising group-- software engineers.
硅谷的很多人希望这种事从未发生过，其中包括一个非常令人惊讶的群体——软件工程师。
I have to say I actually worked on a whole bunch of patents in my career over the years and I have to say that every single patent is nothing but crap.
我不得不说，多年来我在职业生涯中实际上研究了一大堆专利，而且我不得不说，每一项专利都不过是垃圾。
This is Stephan Brunner, a programmer.
我是斯蒂芬·布伦纳，一名程序员。
He said something we heard from a lot of software engineers.
他说了一些我们从很多软件工程师那里听到的事情。
His software patents don't even make sense to him.
他的软件专利对他来说甚至没有意义。
I can't tell you for the hell of it what they're actually supposed to do.
我实在无法告诉你他们到底应该做什么。
Because the company said we have to do a patent on this, and then they send in a lawyer.
因为公司说我们必须为此申请专利，然后他们派了律师。
You basically say, that's probably right.
你基本上会说，这可能是对的。
That's probably wrong.
这可能是错误的。
And they just write something up.
他们只是写一些东西。
It makes no sense.
这毫无意义。
And personally when I look at them, I'm not proud at all because most of them again, it's just like mumbo jumbo, which nobody understands, and which makes no sense from an engineering standpoint whatsoever.
就我个人而言，当我看到它们时，我一点也不感到自豪，因为它们中的大多数又像胡言乱语，没有人理解，从工程的角度来看毫无意义。
Stephan Brunner, patent 7650296 quote, "a configurator using structure and rules to provide a user interface." One sample section and trust me, the whole thing is like this.
Stephan Brunner，专利 7650296 引用，“使用结构和规则提供用户界面的配置器”。一个样本部分，相信我，整个事情就是这样的。
"According to one embodiment of the invention, a customizable product class is created.
“根据本发明的一个实施例，创建了一种可定制的产品类别。
A component product class is added to the customizable product class where the component product class is a sub-class of the customizable product."
组件产品类被添加到可定制产品类中，其中组件产品类是可定制产品的子类。”
In polls, as many as 80% of software engineers say the patent system actually hinders innovation.
民意调查显示，多达 80% 的软件工程师表示专利制度实际上阻碍了创新。
In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to do.
换句话说，它所做的与它应该做的完全相反。
It doesn't encourage them to come up with new ideas and create new products, it actually gets in their way.
它不会鼓励他们提出新想法和创造新产品，实际上会妨碍他们。
Here's another programmer, Adam Cohen.
这是另一位程序员，亚当·科恩。
I work for a company, which I'm not going to say, that at the end of the company we tried to patent-- we did successfully patent our software that we made.
我在一家公司工作，我不会说，在公司结束时我们试图申请专利——我们确实成功地为我们制造的软件申请了专利。
And that patent is really meaningless because everybody that has an internet website, basically almost today, uses the stuff that we patented to make their website work.
该专利实际上毫无意义，因为几乎今天每个拥有互联网网站的人都使用我们获得专利的内容来使他们的网站正常运行。
Almost everybody.
几乎所有人。
This, we heard, happens all the time-- patents that are so broad, everyone's guilty of infringement.
我们听说，这种情况经常发生——专利范围如此广泛，每个人都犯有侵权罪。
Which causes huge problems for almost anyone trying to start or grow a business on the internet.
这给几乎所有试图在互联网上创业或发展业务的人带来了巨大的问题。
We're at a point in the state of intellectual property where existing patents probably cover every single behavior that's happening on the internet and our mobile phones today.
我们正处于知识产权状态，现有专利可能涵盖当今互联网和手机上发生的每一种行为。
This, again, is Chris Sacca, the investor you heard from earlier, who helped lots of companies, including Twitter, get off the ground.
这又是克里斯·萨卡（Chris Sacca），您之前听说过的投资者，他帮助包括 Twitter 在内的许多公司取得了起步。
So I have no doubt that the average Silicon Valley startup, or even medium-sized company, no matter how truly innovative they are, I have no doubt that aspects of whatever they're doing violate patents that are out there right now.
因此，我毫不怀疑硅谷的普通初创公司，甚至中型公司，无论他们多么真正地创新，我毫不怀疑他们所做的任何事情的某些方面都侵犯了现有的专利。
And that's what's fundamentally broken about this system right now.
这就是目前这个系统从根本上被破坏的地方。
And this brings us back to patent 5771354, Chris Crawford's patent, the patent Intellectual Ventures pointed us to as an example of how they encourage innovation.
这让我们回到专利 5771354，克里斯·克劳福德 (Chris Crawford) 的专利，Intellectual Ventures 向我们指出的专利是他们如何鼓励创新的一个例子。
As we've said, this patent also seems to cover a big chunk of what's happening on the internet-- upgrading software, buying stuff online, what's called cloud storage, storing data on the internet.
正如我们所说，这项专利似乎还涵盖了互联网上发生的大部分事情——升级软件、在线购买东西、所谓的云存储、在互联网上存储数据。
If you have a patent on all that, you could sue a lot of people and make a lot of money.
如果你拥有所有这些专利，你可以起诉很多人并赚很多钱。
And in fact, that's what's happening with Chris Crawford's patent.
事实上，克里斯·克劳福德的专利就是这样。
Intellectual Ventures sold it to another company, a company called Oasis Research, in June of 2010.
2010 年 6 月，Intellectual Ventures 将其出售给了另一家名为 Oasis Research 的公司。
Less than a month later, Oasis Research used the patent to sue 16 different tech companies-- companies like Rackspace, Go Daddy, and AT&T, companies that do cloud storage.
不到一个月后，Oasis Research 利用该专利起诉了 16 家不同的科技公司，其中包括 Rackspace、Go Daddy 和 AT&T 等云存储公司。
You have reached Oasis Research.
您已到达绿洲研究中心。
At the tone, please leave your name--
听到提示音后，请留下您的名字——
I called the number on Oasis's website numerous times, but an actual human being never picked up.
我多次拨打绿洲网站上的号码，但从未有人接听。
For a while, the message directed all questions to a lawyer in New York named John Desmarais.
有一段时间，这条信息将所有问题都转给了纽约一位名叫约翰·德马雷（John Desmarais）的律师。
He also didn't return our phone calls, although I did track him down at a conference in San Francisco.
他也没有回我们的电话，尽管我在旧金山的一次会议上找到了他。
I ran up to him right after a talk and asked him what he could tell me about Oasis Research.
演讲结束后，我立即跑向他，问他能告诉我有关绿洲研究的什么信息。
Do you know who owns Oasis Research to reach them?
您知道谁拥有 Oasis Research 来接触他们吗？
Yes, I do.
是的，我愿意。
Yes, but I'm not going to tell you.
是的，但我不会告诉你。
I mean, they're bringing a suit and you literally can't tell us who owns the company?
我的意思是，他们提起诉讼，但你真的不能告诉我们谁拥有这家公司？
I'm not going to answer questions about pending lawsuits for you.
我不会为您回答有关未决诉讼的问题。
Another question.
另一个问题。
Is there any chance at a later date of actually talking to you more generally?
稍后有机会与您进行更广泛的交流吗？
I don't think so, but thanks for asking.
我不这么认为，但谢谢你的提问。
Although, I love NPR and I love the work that you guys do.
尽管如此，我喜欢 NPR，也喜欢你们所做的工作。
Behavior like this makes it hard not to think, are you hiding something?
这样的行为让人很难不去想，你是不是在隐瞒什么？
When someone says, yes, I know, but I'm not going to tell you, it really makes you want to find stuff out.
当有人说，是的，我知道，但我不会告诉你，这真的会让你想要找出答案。
There was hardly any public information about Oasis Research, minimal corporate filings.
几乎没有任何关于绿洲研究的公开信息，公司备案也很少。
No way to know who owned it, how many employees it had, if it even had employees at all.
无法知道谁拥有它，有多少员工，甚至根本没有员工。
One of the few details that was available: an address, in Marshall, Texas.
为数不多的可用细节之一：位于德克萨斯州马歇尔的地址。
104 East Houston Street, Suite 190.
东休斯顿街 104 号，190 室。
Right now we're going into the first floor of the Baxter Building, which is 104 East Houston.
现在我们要进入巴克斯特大厦的一楼，即东休斯顿 104 号。
This is Michael Smith.
这是迈克尔·史密斯。
He's an attorney in Marshall, Texas, who does mostly patent cases.
他是德克萨斯州马歇尔市的一名律师，主要处理专利案件。
He agreed to show us the offices of Oasis Research.
他同意带我们参观绿洲研究公司的办公室。
They're in a nondescript, two-story building on the town's main square, two doors down from the federal courthouse.
他们位于镇主广场上一栋不起眼的两层楼房里，距离联邦法院只有两扇门。
He led us into a narrow corridor lined with doors with gold and black office name plates.
他带我们走进一条狭窄的走廊，走廊两旁都是挂着金色和黑色办公室名牌的门。
And here we go, suite 190, Oasis Research LLC.
我们来了，绿洲研究有限责任公司 190 室。
It was late morning on a weekday-- not a holiday-- but the door was locked.
那是一个工作日的上午晚些时候——不是节假日——但门是锁着的。
Through the crack underneath you could see there were no lights on inside.
透过下面的裂缝，可以看到里面没有开灯。
Marshall is a very small town, 24,000 people.
马歇尔是一个很小的城镇，只有 24,000 人。
Michael was born and raised here, so we started quizzing him about Oasis.
迈克尔在这里出生并长大，因此我们开始向他询问有关 Oasis 的情况。
Does it have any employees that you know about?
它有您认识的员工吗？
Not that I know of.
据我所知没有。
Laura Sydell Have you ever seen any people coming in and out of that office?
劳拉·西德尔 你见过有人进出那间办公室吗？
No, I haven't.
不，我没有。
Alex Blumberg Is this office ever occupied?
Alex Blumberg 这间办公室有人住过吗？
I doubt that it is.
我怀疑是这样。
Laura Sydell If you don't mind, I'm going to knock on that door and just see if there's anyone here today.
劳拉·西德尔（Laura Sydell）：如果您不介意的话，我会敲门，看看今天是否有人在这里。
I know this is kind of a cliche at this point, knocking on the door of the suspected fake office--
我知道这有点陈词滥调，敲开可疑的假办公室的门——
Nothing.
什么也没有。
Alex Blumberg But we'd flown a long way.
亚历克斯·布隆伯格：但是我们已经飞了很长一段路了。
But I will say, standing in that corridor was eerie.
但我要说的是，站在那条走廊里很奇怪。
All the other doors looked exactly the same-- locked, name plates over the door, no light coming out.
所有其他的门看起来都一模一样——锁着，门上挂着铭牌，没有光亮。
It was a corridor of silent, empty offices.
这是一条安静、空荡荡的办公室走廊。
Right next door to Software Rights Archive, Bulletproof Technology of Texas, Jelly Fish Technology of Texas, and a couple others that I recognize as plaintiffs in cases that we're involved in here.
就在 Software Rights Archive 的隔壁，德克萨斯州的防弹技术公司（Bulletproof Technology of Texas）、德克萨斯州的果冻鱼技术公司（Jelly Fish Technology of Texas）以及其他几个我认为是我们所涉及案件中的原告的公司。
Are there are a lot of companies like this here in East Texas?
德克萨斯州东部有很多这样的公司吗？
Yes.
是的。
Alex Blumberg And we're standing in the whole corridor of them, it seems like.
Alex Blumberg：我们似乎站在他们的整个走廊里。
So what's going on here?
那么这是怎么回事呢？
It turns out a lot of those companies in that corridor, maybe every single one of them, are doing exactly what Oasis Research is doing.
事实证明，这条走廊里的很多公司，也许每一家，都在做绿洲研究正在做的事情。
They appear to have no employees.
他们似乎没有员工。
They're not making new inventions here.
他们并没有在这里进行新发明。
They're filing lawsuits for patent infringement.
他们正在就专利侵权提起诉讼。
Patent lawsuits, says Michael Smith, are big business in Marshall, part of the Eastern District of Texas.
迈克尔·史密斯表示，专利诉讼是德克萨斯州东区马歇尔的一项大生意。
Walking back across the town square past the Eastern District Courthouse, Michael explained it.
穿过城镇广场，经过东区法院，迈克尔解释道。
The Eastern District in the last few years has been either number one or number two or three in the nation in numbers of patent cases.
东区近年来专利案件数量居全国第一、第二、第三位。
The list of the patent cases at this courthouse would be about 2,000 cases long.
该法院的专利案件清单大约有 2,000 件。
As we walked past the courthouse, as if to drive the point home, a gaggle of lawyers emerges-- dozens and dozens of dark suits in the hot Texas sun.
当我们走过法院时，似乎是为了强调这一点，一群律师出现了——在德克萨斯州炎热的阳光下，几十套深色西装。
They're taking their mid-morning break during a patent trial that started yesterday morning in front of Magistrate Judge Everingham.
他们在昨天早上在治安法官埃弗林厄姆面前开始的专利审判中享受上午的休息时间。
It's quite something to see all these-- it is, in this case, it's mostly men in suits, a couple women just streaming out of that courthouse one after another, this little federal courthouse.
看到这一切真是太了不起了——在这种情况下，大部分都是穿着西装的男人，几个女人一个接一个地从那个法院，这个小小的联邦法院里涌出来。
They travel in packs.
他们成群结队旅行。
Alex Blumberg We talked to many people about why this is so.
Alex Blumberg 我们和很多人讨论过为什么会这样。
Why do all these New York and San Francisco-based companies come to tiny Marshall to battle in court?
为什么所有这些总部位于纽约和旧金山的公司都来到小小的马歇尔法庭上法庭？
Many people say it has to do with juries in Marshall.
很多人说这与马歇尔的陪审团有关。
They are famously plaintiff friendly, friendly to patent owners trying to get a large verdict.
众所周知，他们对原告友好，对试图获得大额判决的专利所有者也很友好。
But Michael Smith, who's argued on both sides of numerous patent cases, says that might have been true once, but not anymore.
但曾在众多专利案件中为双方辩护的迈克尔·史密斯表示，这曾经可能是正确的，但现在不再是这样了。
He says they're in Marshall because of the drug war.
他说他们在马歇尔是因为毒品战争。
Basically, in the '90s, federal courts everywhere were clogged with drug cases.
基本上，在 90 年代，各地的联邦法院都充斥着毒品案件。
Civil cases like patent cases couldn't get in front of a judge because criminal cases take precedence.
像专利案件这样的民事案件无法提交法官审理，因为刑事案件优先。
So companies with patent suits had to find a spot with fewer criminals to prosecute-- hence, sleepy Marshall, Texas.
因此，提起专利诉讼的公司必须找到一个犯罪分子较少的地方进行起诉——因此，就是沉睡的德克萨斯州马歇尔市。
Our visit to Marshall made us realize, something big is going on here in Texas, and Oasis Research is part of it.
我们对马歇尔的访问让我们意识到，德克萨斯州正在发生一些大事，而绿洲研究公司就是其中的一部分。
2,000 lawsuits making the same essential claim Intellectual Ventures makes.
2,000 起诉讼提出了与 Intellectual Ventures 相同的基本主张。
There's an inventor whose invention is being stolen, used without permission.
有一位发明家，他的发明被盗，未经许可被使用。
But there were no inventors here, just corridors of empty offices and a lot of lawyers.
但这里没有发明家，只有空荡荡的办公室走廊和很多律师。
It made us wonder, what else about Intellectual Ventures is not what it appears to be?
这让我们想知道，Intellectual Ventures 还有什么与它表面上看起来不一样的地方？
Alex Blumberg and Laura Sydell.
亚历克斯·布隆伯格和劳拉·西德尔。
Coming up, we go back to Intellectual Ventures for answers, and we find out what a patent has in common with a weapon of mass destruction.
接下来，我们回到 Intellectual Ventures 寻求答案，并找出专利与大规模杀伤性武器的共同点。
That's in a minute, from Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International, when our program continues.
稍后，芝加哥公共广播电台和国际公共广播电台将继续我们的节目。
Act Two: Act Two Ira Glass It's This American Life .
第二幕： 第二幕 艾拉·格拉斯 这就是美国生活。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Today on our show, "When Patents Attack," stories about how our patent system sometimes seems to be discouraging rather than encouraging innovation in high-tech businesses.
今天，在我们的节目《当专利受到攻击时》中，我们的专利制度有时似乎会阻碍而不是鼓励高科技企业的创新。
A quick review of where we are in our story.
快速回顾一下我们在故事中所处的位置。
OK, there's this company called Intellectual Ventures.
好的，有一家公司叫 Intellectual Ventures。
They told our reporters that they, if they wanted to understand what the company was all about, should talk to this inventor that Intellectual Ventures helped out.
他们告诉记者，如果他们想了解这家公司是做什么的，应该和这位Intellectual Ventures帮助的发明家谈谈。
The guy is a patent holder named Chris Crawford.
这个人是一位专利持有者，名叫克里斯·克劳福德（Chris Crawford）。
But when our reporters tried to contact Chris Crawford, he won't return any phone calls.
但当我们的记者试图联系克里斯·克劳福德时，他没有接任何电话。
He won't return emails.
他不会回复电子邮件。
We found out his patent has actually been sold by Intellectual Ventures.
我们发现他的专利实际上已被 Intellectual Ventures 出售。
They no longer own it.
他们不再拥有它。
It is now being used to sue over a dozen different tech businesses.
它现在被用来起诉十几家不同的科技企业。
And the company doing the suing, called Oasis Research, has no researchers, no employees of any kind that we can find.
提起诉讼的公司名为绿洲研究公司，没有研究人员，也没有我们能找到的任何类型的员工。
And its only place of business seems to be an empty office in a corridor of empty offices in a small town in Texas.
它唯一的营业地点似乎是德克萨斯州一个小镇空办公室走廊里的一间空办公室。
So our reporters, Laura Sydell and Alex Blumberg, had a lot of questions.
因此，我们的记者 Laura Sydell 和 Alex Blumberg 有很多问题。
Some of the questions seemed like they should have been simple to answer, but they weren't.
有些问题看起来应该很容易回答，但事实并非如此。
For example, when did Intellectual Ventures actually buy the patent from Chris Crawford?
例如，Intellectual Ventures 何时真正从 Chris Crawford 手中购买了该专利？
There's a document that's publicly available on the US Patent Office website.
美国专利局网站上公开了一份文件。
It traces a patent's ownership history.
它追踪专利的所有权历史。
In the case of Chris Crawford's patent, though, the ownership history was really hard to understand.
然而，就克里斯·克劳福德的专利而言，其所有权历史确实很难理解。
The first owner is clear.
第一任主人很清楚。
It's Chris Crawford, who was granted the patent in 1998.
克里斯·克劳福德 (Chris Crawford) 于 1998 年获得了该专利。
And then it's clear that a company named Intellectual Ventures Computing Platforce Assets LLC-- no one could actually tell us what a platforce is-- bought the patent in July of 2010.
然后很明显，一家名为 Intellectual VenturesComputingPlatforceAssetsLLC 的公司（没有人能真正告诉我们 platforce 是什么）于 2010 年 7 月购买了该专利。
But in between those two dates, there are two other owners, a company called Kwon Holdings and another one named Enhanced Software LLC.
但在这两个日期之间，还有另外两个所有者，一家名为 Kwon Holdings 的公司，另一家名为Enhanced Software LLC 的公司。
And what was odd, Kwon Holdings, Enhanced Software, and Intellectual Ventures all have the same address.
奇怪的是，Kwon Holdings、Enhanced Software 和 Intellectual Ventures 的地址都相同。
We went back to Intellectual Ventures to clear some of this stuff up.
我们回到 Intellectual Ventures 来清理一些问题。
Now there's one thing we need to explain before we tell you what happened there.
在告诉你那里发生了什么之前，我们需要解释一件事。
Remember the guy at the very beginning of our story, Peter Detkin, the guy who coined the term patent troll after his daughter's doll?
还记得我们故事一开始的那个人，彼得·德特金（Peter Detkin），他用他女儿的洋娃娃创造了“专利巨魔”这个词吗？
The guy who hates patent trolls.
讨厌专利流氓的人。
You'll never guess what he's doing now.
你永远猜不到他现在在做什么。
I'm a founder and vice chairman of Intellectual Ventures here in Silicon Valley.
我是硅谷 Intellectual Ventures 的创始人兼副主席。
That's right.
这是正确的。
The guy who coined the term patent troll teamed up with Nathan Myhrvold to start a company that many people call the biggest patent troll out there.
创造“专利流氓”一词的人与内森·梅尔沃尔德 (Nathan Myhrvold) 合作创办了一家公司，许多人称之为最大的专利流氓。
Peter Detkin obviously disagrees with this characterization.
彼得·德特金显然不同意这种描述。
So anyway, we went to Peter Detkin to ask our questions, and we started off by showing him that publicly available page on the US Patent Office website.
所以无论如何，我们去找 Peter Detkin 询问我们的问题，我们首先向他展示了美国专利局网站上的公开页面。
And we asked him what seemed like a pretty straightforward question.
我们问了他一个看似非常简单的问题。
When exactly did Intellectual Ventures buy Chris Crawford's patent?
Intellectual Ventures 到底什么时候购买了 Chris Crawford 的专利？
It turns out this was the question that completely threw him off and led the PR woman who was in the room with us to jump in and to try and shut down the interview.
事实证明，这个问题完全让他感到困惑，并导致与我们一起在房间里的公关女士介入并试图结束采访。
You'll hear her voice in the background.
您会在背景中听到她的声音。
This is just the patent history of Chris's patent.
这只是克里斯的专利的专利历史。
And honestly, we just don't understand this.
老实说，我们就是不明白这一点。
So if you could explain what we're looking at here.
那么您能否解释一下我们在这里看到的内容。
He invented it in 1998.
他于 1998 年发明了它。
I didn't put my reading glasses on, so I'm struggling a little bit here.
我没有戴老花镜，所以我在这里有点困难。
Right, so he invented this-- Pr Woman I don't know that diving into the history of this patent is necessary.
是的，所以他发明了这个—— Pr Woman 我不知道有必要深入研究这个专利的历史。
I don't know where you're going with this.
我不知道你要怎么处理这个问题。
What's the question?
问题是什么？
What are you trying to find out?
你想找出什么？
If you could explain, the story you're telling is that you bought this patent from this inventor, Chris Crawford, and then you sold it a little bit later.
如果您能解释一下，您所讲述的故事是您从发明家克里斯·克劳福德（Chris Crawford）那里购买了这项专利，然后稍后又将其出售。
But then if you actually look at the history, it's a very different story.
但如果你真正回顾历史，就会发现这是一个非常不同的故事。
It seems very different.
看起来很不一样。
So I'm trying to figure out if you could explain to us--
所以我想知道你能否向我们解释一下——
I won't be able to tell you by looking at this.
光看这个我就无法告诉你。
I mean, I'd have to talk-- I'm not an expert in-- you're on the USPTO website?
我的意思是，我必须谈谈——我不是这方面的专家——你在美国专利商标局的网站上吗？
I haven't looked at this particular website in a while.
我有一段时间没有查看这个特定的网站了。
I don't know how it's organized.
我不知道它是如何组织的。
I'm trying to be helpful, but the fact is I know we bought it from some entity of his.
我试图提供帮助，但事实是我知道我们是从他的某个实体那里购买的。
And apparently, we then sold it, and again, I have some vague recollection of us doing that deal.
显然，我们然后卖掉了它，而且，我对我们做那笔交易有一些模糊的记忆。
Wait, are you telling me that you run a patent company and you were the head counsel for Intel in the patent department-- you don't know what the patent office website-- you don't know how to read this?
等等，你是在告诉我，你经营一家专利公司，并且你是英特尔专利部门的首席法律顾问——你不知道专利局网站是什么——你不知道如何阅读这个？
Look, I mean, I could look at this if you want.
听着，我的意思是，如果你愿意的话我可以看看这个。
But I haven't looked at this particular website and I don't know how it's organized.
但我没有看过这个特定的网站，我不知道它是如何组织的。
And I'm not exactly sure what it is you're trying to get at.
我不太确定你想表达什么。
So I'm happy to answer questions, but if you're going to cross-examine me about-- on the record about a patent website, I don't think that's quite fair.
所以我很乐意回答问题，但如果你要盘问我有关专利网站的记录，我认为这不太公平。
So, for example, one question is, when was it sold to Intellectual Ventures?
例如，一个问题是，它是什么时候卖给 Intellectual Ventures 的？
Because it's sold a number of times, but it's sold a number of times to different companies with the same address as Intellectual Ventures.
因为它被出售了很多次，但是它被多次出售给与 Intellectual Ventures 地址相同的不同公司。
Does that mean that it was sold to Intellectual Ventures or not?
这是否意味着它已被出售给Intellectual Ventures？
It's a little different and we're not going to talk about this.
这有点不同，我们不打算讨论这个。
I have no idea.
我不知道。
There's no way without knowing the details of this particular deal I could ever possibly answer that question.
如果不了解这笔特定交易的细节，我就不可能回答这个问题。
We were honestly surprised at this response.
老实说，我们对这个回应感到惊讶。
It wasn't like this was a secret document or something.
这不像是秘密文件什么的。
What was the big deal about answering this seemingly simple question?
回答这个看似简单的问题有什么大不了的？
Part of it certainly was that we took them a little bit by surprise.
部分原因肯定是我们让他们有点惊讶。
I take him at his word that they do a lot of deals and he doesn't know the details of every one.
我相信他的话，他们做了很多交易，但他并不知道每一笔交易的细节。
But we talked to another guy, an intellectual property lawyer named Tom Ewing, who suggested there might have been more to it than that.
但我们采访了另一个人，一位名叫汤姆·尤因（Tom Ewing）的知识产权律师，他表示事情可能不止于此。
Tom Ewing told us those other companies listed on that Patent Office document-- Kwon Holdings and Enhanced Software-- they might very well be Intellectual Ventures, what he calls Intellectual Ventures shell companies.
汤姆·尤因告诉我们，专利局文件中列出的其他公司——Kwon Holdings 和增强软件——它们很可能是 Intellectual Ventures，他称之为 Intellectual Ventures 空壳公司。
Tom Ewing makes a business of tracking them.
汤姆·尤因以追踪他们为业。
He started it as sort of a private challenge to himself.
他开始将其视为对自己的私人挑战。
I heard for the longest time when they first started that they had everything in shell companies and no one could ever find it.
当他们刚开始的时候，我听了很长时间，他们把所有的东西都放在空壳公司里，没有人能找到它。
And I kept hearing that so much, and it irritated me because I figured that I could, if I just sat down and started looking.
我不断听到这样的说法，这让我很恼火，因为我认为只要我坐下来开始寻找，我就可以做到。
So I did.
所以我做到了。
How many shell companies do you personally believe that Intellectual Ventures has, based on your research?
根据您的研究，您个人认为 Intellectual Ventures 有多少家空壳公司？
Very close to 1,300.
非常接近 1,300。
Laura Sydell So we asked Tom Ewing what seemed like an obvious question.
劳拉·西德尔（Laura Sydell）所以我们问了汤姆·尤因（Tom Ewing）一个看似显而易见的问题。
Is Oasis Research a shell company of Intellectual Ventures?
Oasis Research 是 Intellectual Ventures 的空壳公司吗？
And he said, probably not.
他说，可能不会。
Tom said Oasis more likely falls into a second category, companies that are independently owned, but with close links to Intellectual Ventures.
汤姆表示，绿洲更有可能属于第二类，即独立拥有的公司，但与 Intellectual Ventures 有着密切的联系。
For example, John Desmarais, the lawyer representing Oasis, also represents Intellectual Ventures in lots of cases, and has links to that company going back almost a decade.
例如，Oasis 的代理律师 John Desmarais 也在许多案件中代表 Intellectual Ventures，并且与该公司的联系可以追溯到近十年前。
And Tom said there's evidence that Intellectual Ventures might be getting a cut of whatever money Oasis receives from its lawsuits.
汤姆表示，有证据表明，Intellectual Ventures 可能会从 Oasis 从诉讼中获得的任何资金中分一杯羹。
He shows us a document that's called "a certification of interested parties."
他向我们展示了一份名为“相关方证明”的文件。
The court in Texas required that Oasis list all the entities who have a financial stake in the outcome of the case.
德克萨斯州法院要求 Oasis 列出与案件结果有经济利益关系的所有实体。
This is a standard form that pretty much all plaintiffs in civil cases have to file.
这是几乎所有民事案件原告都必须提交的标准表格。
Oasis listed the parties that most people list-- the plaintiff, the defendants, the attorneys involved.
绿洲列出了大多数人列出的当事人——原告、被告、涉案律师。
But it added one other name, Intellectual Ventures.
但它又加上了另一个名字：Intellectual Ventures。
So we went back to Intellectual Ventures one more time to talk to Peter Detkin.
因此，我们再次回到 Intellectual Ventures 与 Peter Detkin 进行交谈。
We picked up where we left off the last time-- when did Intellectual Ventures actually buy Chris Crawford's patent?
我们从上次停下的地方开始——Intellectual Ventures 何时真正购买了 Chris Crawford 的专利？
And this time he had no hesitation about explaining it.
而这一次，他也没有犹豫，直接解释道。
It turns out Tom Ewing had been right.
事实证明汤姆·尤因是对的。
Those other mysterious companies-- Kwon Holdings and Enhanced Software-- they were Intellectual Ventures' shell companies.
其他那些神秘的公司——Kwon Holdings 和Enhanced Software——都是Intellectual Ventures 的空壳公司。
This is when we bought it, October of 2007, from CMC Software to Kwon Holdings, and Kwon is a company that we created to purchase these assets.
2007 年 10 月，我们从 CMC Software 收购了 Kwon Holdings，而 Kwon 是我们为购买这些资产而创建的公司。
Then when we actually struck a deal and prepared to sell it, in the name of transparency, we changed it to the Intellectual Ventures Computing Platforce Assets.
然后，当我们真正达成交易并准备出售它时，以透明的名义，我们将其更改为 Intellectual Ventures 计算平台资产。
Please don't ask me what a platforce is.
请不要问我什么是平台力量。
I don't know what it is.
我不知道那是什么。
And then in August of 2010, we sold it to Oasis Research.
然后在 2010 年 8 月，我们将其卖给了 Oasis Research。
We showed Detkin that court document from the Oasis case listing Intellectual Ventures as an interested party.
我们向德特金展示了 Oasis 案的法庭文件，其中将 Intellectual Ventures 列为利益相关方。
OK, and it does list the Intellectual Ventures Computing Platforce Assets as an interested party.
好的，它确实将 Intellectual Ventures 计算平台资产列为感兴趣的一方。
I see that.
我明白了。
And you don't know why in this instance you're listed?
你不知道为什么在这种情况下你会被列出来？
I believe it's because we likely have a back-end arrangement here.
我相信这是因为我们可能在这里有后端安排。
We sell for some amount of money up front, and we get some percentage of the royalty stream down the road that is generated from the monetization of these assets.
我们预先以一定金额出售，然后从这些资产的货币化中产生一定比例的特许权使用费。
So just to spell this out, Peter Detkin is saying it's likely that Intellectual Ventures is taking a cut of whatever money Oasis gets from its lawsuits-- Oasis, a company with no operations, no products, and as far as we can tell no employees, whose only activity seems to be taking a very broad patent from 1998 and using it to sue over a dozen internet companies today.
为了阐明这一点，Peter Detkin 表示，Intellectual Ventures 很可能会从 Oasis 从诉讼中获得的任何资金中分一杯羹——Oasis 是一家没有业务、没有产品、据我们所知没有员工的公司，其唯一的活动似乎是从 1998 年开始使用一项非常广泛的专利，并用它起诉十几家互联网公司。
And so we asked him, how does it feel making money from an entity, which is behaving a lot like the patent trolls that he once condemned?
所以我们问他，从一个行为很像他曾经谴责的专利流氓的实体赚钱感觉如何？
These are patents we used to hold, we no longer hold.
这些是我们曾经持有的专利，现在我们不再持有了。
And we ensure that we have no control over the actions of these third parties.
我们确保我们无法控制这些第三方的行为。
They are independent actors.
他们是独立演员。
They're not Intellectual Ventures.
他们不是智力投资公司。
They may be monetizing in ways that we disagree with, but it's not our call.
他们可能会以我们不同意的方式赚钱，但这不是我们的决定。
It's theirs.
这是他们的。
Yeah, so I sort of feel like, yeah, well, but what do you expect?
是的，所以我有点感觉，是的，好吧，但是你期望什么？
You must have some knowledge that it's highly likely these people are going to go and bring lawsuits, especially since they're companies that only have these largely run by attorneys.
您必须知道这些人很可能会提起诉讼，特别是因为他们是主要由律师运营的公司。
Sure, I understand.
当然，我明白。
I'm not disputing any of that.
我对此没有任何争议。
What I'm trying to say, and I apologize if I'm not being clear, is that we do believe, we believe in our heart, that litigation is a highly inefficient way to do licensing.
我想说的是，如果我没有说清楚，我很抱歉，我们确实相信，我们内心相信，诉讼是一种非常低效的许可方式。
But let's not lose sight that litigation is just licensing by other means.
但我们不要忽视诉讼只是通过其他方式获得许可。
In other words, we try to license these patents in a friendly way, but sometimes you have to sue.
换句话说，我们尝试以友好的方式许可这些专利，但有时你必须起诉。
Peter Detkin then repeated the company line that we'd heard from a lot of people at IV, that the mission of Intellectual Ventures is to help inventors bring great ideas into the world.
Peter Detkin 然后重复了我们从 IV 的很多人那里听到的公司路线，即 Intellectual Ventures 的使命是帮助发明家将伟大的想法带入世界。
That lots of inventors, they're like great artists.
很多发明家，他们就像伟大的艺术家。
Brilliant, but not brilliant at business, so their patents languish.
才华横溢，但在商业上并不出色，因此他们的专利日渐衰落。
IV gets their ideas into the hands of companies who will actually build what they've invented.
IV 将他们的想法交到公司手中，这些公司将真正构建他们的发明。
So can you point me to a patent that you acquired that was languishing that then got licensed to somebody and built in a way that I could see?
那么，您能否向我指出您获得的一项专利，该专利当时正处于停滞状态，然后被许可给某人并以我可以看到的方式构建？
I can tell you that it's happened, but unfortunately the deal's confidential.
我可以告诉你，这件事已经发生了，但不幸的是，这笔交易是保密的。
There are two deals that were done.
目前已完成两笔交易。
One was with a toy company and the other was-- I can't remember the technology of the other one.
一个是在一家玩具公司，另一个是——我不记得另一家的技术了。
But they came to us and they said, we're interested in this particular patent.
但他们来找我们说，我们对这项特殊专利感兴趣。
We'd like to take it out into the world.
我们想把它带到世界上。
Will you give us a license?
你会给我们许可证吗？
We did.
我们做到了。
And they put it out there.
他们把它放在那里。
It was out there for last Christmas.
去年圣诞节就在那里。
I actually don't know how it's done.
我其实不知道它是怎么做到的。
I'd be curious to find out myself.
我很想知道自己。
But I agree, that's an anomaly.
但我同意，这是一个反常现象。
I see where you're going with your question and I don't mean to fight you on it.
我明白你的问题的意思，我无意在这个问题上与你争论。
The fact is the bulk of our patents, the bulk of our revenue, is from people using inven-- they were using it before we bought it, and they are using it after we bought it, but we provided an efficient way for them to get access to those invention rights.
事实上，我们的大部分专利、我们的大部分收入都来自于使用 inven 的人——他们在我们购买之前就使用了它，在我们购买之后也使用了它，但我们为他们提供了一种有效的方式来获取这些发明权。
The way I hear what you're saying, the way I translate it in my head is they were using it before without paying a license and nobody was bothering them.
我听到你所说的方式，我在脑海中翻译它的方式是，他们以前在没有支付许可证的情况下使用它，没有人打扰他们。
And now they are paying a license to you.
现在他们正在向您支付许可证费用。
Why is that a better situation?
为什么这是一个更好的情况？
Well, because we want to incentivize the guy who invented it.
嗯，因为我们想激励发明它的人。
That is, if companies pay their licenses, inventors make more money, which in turn, gives them incentive to invent more stuff.
也就是说，如果公司支付许可费，发明家就会赚更多的钱，这反过来又会激励他们发明更多的东西。
This is the rhetorical cul-de-sac where every argument with Peter Detkin ends.
这是修辞上的死胡同，每次与彼得·德特金的争论都以这里结束。
But here's the problem with that argument.
但这是这个论点的问题。
IV is not buying inventions.
IV 不是购买发明。
They're buying patents.
他们正在购买专利。
And as we've heard, as most software engineers will tell you, at least when it comes to computers and the internet, a patent and an invention are not the same.
正如我们所知，正如大多数软件工程师会告诉您的那样，至少在计算机和互联网方面，专利和发明是不同的。
Lots of patents cover things that people in the field wouldn't consider inventions at all.
许多专利涵盖了该领域的人们根本不认为是发明的事物。
And these patents out there, that aren't for something novel, or are so broad they can cover anything, every single one of them can be used to bring lawsuits.
这些专利并不是为了新颖的东西，或者太广泛以至于可以涵盖任何东西，其中每一项都可以用来提起诉讼。
In response, all the big tech companies have started amassing troves of software patents, not to build anything, but to defend themselves.
作为回应，所有大型科技公司都开始积累大量软件专利，不是为了建造任何东西，而是为了保护自己。
If a company's patent hoard is big enough, it can say essentially, if you try to sue me with your patents, I'll sue you with mine.
如果一家公司的专利储备足够大，它基本上可以说，如果你试图用你的专利起诉我，我就会用我的专利起诉你。
It's the old mutually assured destruction.
这是古老的相互确保毁灭。
Except instead of arsenals of nuclear weapons, it's arsenals of patents.
除了不是核武器库之外，它是专利库。
And this was a problem Intellectual Ventures founder Nathan Myhrvold said he was trying to solve when he first started his company, a problem that he and others from Intellectual Ventures talked about in investor meetings all around Silicon Valley.
Intellectual Ventures 创始人 Nathan Myhrvold 表示，他在刚创办公司时就试图解决这个问题，他和 Intellectual Ventures 的其他人在硅谷各地的投资者会议上讨论了这个问题。
Chris Sacca was there at one of them.
克里斯·萨卡就在其中之一。
I think I saw Nathan for the first time present the idea of Intellectual Ventures in either the fall of 2007 or the spring of 2008.
我想我第一次看到 Nathan 提出 Intellectual Ventures 的想法是在 2007 年秋天或 2008 年春天。
And the pitch he heard was, basically, Intellectual Ventures helps defend against lawsuits.
他听到的宣传基本上是，Intellectual Ventures 帮助抵御诉讼。
Intellectual Ventures has this hoard of 35,000 patents-- 35,000 patents that, for a price, companies can access and use to defend themselves.
Intellectual Ventures 拥有 35,000 项专利——企业只要付出一定的代价就可以获取并使用这 35,000 项专利来保护自己。
They pay administrative fees ranging from the tens of thousands to the millions and millions of dollars, all into this entity to kind of buy themselves insurance that protects them from being sued by any harmful, malevolent outsiders.
他们向这个实体支付数万到数百万美元的管理费，为自己购买保险，以保护他们免受任何有害、恶意的外部人士的起诉。
In other words, Intellectual Ventures goes around to companies and says, hey, you want to protect yourself from lawsuits?
换句话说，Intellectual Ventures 会去找公司说，嘿，你想保护自己免受诉讼吗？
We own tons of patents.
我们拥有大量专利。
Make a deal with us.
与我们达成协议。
Our patents will not only cover everything you're doing in your business, no one will dare sue you.
我们的专利不仅涵盖您在业务中所做的一切，没有人敢起诉您。
But to Chris Sacca, there's an implication in there.
但对于克里斯·萨卡来说，这其中有一定的含义。
If you don't join us, who knows what will happen?
如果你不加入我们，谁知道会发生什么？
Which reminds him of the business practices of another organization.
这让他想起了另一个组织的商业惯例。
A Mafia-style shakedown, where somebody comes in the front door of your building and says, it'd be a shame if this place burned down.
黑手党式的勒索，有人来到你大楼的前门说，如果这个地方被烧毁，那就太可惜了。
I know the neighborhood really well and I can make sure that doesn't happen.
我非常了解这个街区，我可以确保这种情况不会发生。
And saying, pay us up.
还说，付钱给我们。
Now here's what's funny.
现在有趣的是。
When I've seen Nathan speak publicly about this, and when I've seen spokespeople from Intellectual Ventures, they constantly remind us that they, themselves, don't bring lawsuits.
当我看到内森公开谈论此事时，当我看到 Intellectual Ventures 的发言人时，他们不断提醒我们，他们自己不会提起诉讼。
That they, themselves, are not litigators.
他们本身不是诉讼律师。
That they're a defensive player.
他们是一名防守球员。
But the truth is that the threat of their patent arsenal can't actually be realized.
但事实是，他们的专利库的威胁实际上无法实现。
It can't be taken seriously unless they have that offensive posture, unless they're willing to assert those patents.
除非他们有这种进攻姿态，除非他们愿意主张这些专利，否则不能认真对待它。
And so it's this very delicate balancing act that is quite reminiscent of scenes you see in movies when the Mafia comes to visit your butcher shop.
因此，这种非常微妙的平衡行为很容易让人想起电影中黑手党来到你的肉店时看到的场景。
And they say to you, hey, it would be a real shame if somebody else came and sued you.
他们对你说，嘿，如果其他人来起诉你，那真是太可惜了。
Tell you what-- pay us an exorbitant membership fee into our collective and we'll keep you protected that way.
告诉你吧——向我们支付高昂的会员费加入我们的集体，我们将以此方式保护你。
A protection scheme isn't that credible unless some butcher shops burn down now and then.
除非一些肉店时不时被烧毁，否则保护计划就不那么可信。
We told Intellectual Ventures that Chris Sacca compared their business to a Mafia shakedown.
我们告诉 Intellectual Ventures，克里斯·萨卡 (Chris Sacca) 将他们的业务比作黑手党的整顿。
And in an email, Peter Detkin called that "ridiculous and offensive." He then reiterated some of the arguments you've heard about how IV protects inventors, and went on to say quote, "we're a disruptive company that's providing a way for patent holders to recognize value--" recognize value, he means make money-- "that wasn't available before we came on the scene.
彼得·德特金在一封电子邮件中称这种做法“荒谬且无礼”。然后他重申了一些你听说过的关于 IV 如何保护发明人的论点，并继续说道，“我们是一家颠覆性的公司，为专利持有者提供了一种认识价值的方式——”认识价值，他的意思是赚钱——“在我们出现之前，这是不可用的。
And we are making a big impact on the market.
我们正在对市场产生巨大影响。
That obviously makes people uncomfortable, but no amount of name calling changes the fact that ideas have value."
这显然会让人们感到不舒服，但再多的谩骂也改变不了想法有价值的事实。”
True enough, but lately it seems like a lot of butcher shops have been burning.
确实如此，但最近似乎有很多肉店都着火了。
As we were reporting this story, more and more Intellectual Ventures patents started showing up in the hands of companies like Oasis, companies without employees or operations, who were formed for the purpose of filing lawsuits.
当我们报道这个故事时，越来越多的 Intellectual Ventures 专利开始出现在像 Oasis 这样的公司手中，这些公司没有员工或运营，是为了提起诉讼而成立的。
They're known as non-practicing entities, or NPEs.
他们被称为非执业实体（NPE）。
One former IV patent was used by an NPE to sue 19 different companies-- a seemingly random assortment, which included Dell Computers, Abercrombie & Fitch, Visa, UPS.
NPE 使用一项前 IV 专利起诉 19 家不同的公司——看似随机的分类，其中包括戴尔电脑、Abercrombie & Fitch、Visa、UPS。
What's the suit about?
这套衣服是关于什么的？
These companies all have websites that when you scroll your mouse over certain sections, pop-up boxes appear.
这些公司都有网站，当您将鼠标滚动到某些部分时，会出现弹出框。
This NPE said, we have a patent on that.
这位 NPE 说，我们拥有这方面的专利。
Another group of former IV patents is being used in one of the most controversial and most talked-about cases in Silicon Valley right now.
另一组前 IV 专利正被用于目前硅谷最具争议和谈论最多的案件之一。
An NPE called Lodsys is suing almost three dozen companies and counting.
一家名为 Lodsys 的 NPE 正在起诉近三打公司，而且这一数字还在增加。
These are small- and medium-sized companies developing apps for iPhone and Android smartphones.
这些是为 iPhone 和 Android 智能手机开发应用程序的中小型公司。
Lodsys says every time you buy something within a smartphone app, they own the patent on that.
Lodsys 表示，每次你在智能手机应用程序中购买东西时，他们就拥有该专利。
And one interesting wrinkle about that case, the address of Lodsys, 104 East Houston Street, Marshall, Texas, Suite 190-- the same exact address, down to the suite number, as Oasis Research.
关于该案例的一个有趣的问题是，Lodsys 的地址，104 East Houston Street, Marshall, Texas, Suite 190——与 Oasis Research 的地址完全相同，甚至包括套房号。
Tom Ewing, the lawyer who keeps track of Intellectual Ventures, says that all this behavior has led people to come up with a special name for the company.
跟踪 Intellectual Ventures 的律师汤姆·尤因 (Tom Ewing) 表示，所有这些行为都导致人们为该公司想出了一个特殊的名称。
The troll on steroids.
类固醇巨魔。
Laura Sydell Do you think it's a troll on steroids?
劳拉·西德尔（Laura Sydell）：你认为这是一个服用类固醇的巨魔吗？
I don't want to complicate things, but I personally think there's a whole lot of gray.
我不想让事情复杂化，但我个人认为有很多灰色地带。
For example, they've already collected $2 billion worth of royalties, so they say.
例如，他们说，他们已经收取了价值 20 亿美元的特许权使用费。
And you have to ask yourself, of the $2 billion in royalties they've collected, how much of those royalties that they've collected are based on reasonable licensing fees that the people they received it from should have paid?
你必须问自己，在他们收取的 20 亿美元特许权使用费中，他们收取的特许权使用费中有多少是基于他们收到特许权的人应该支付的合理许可费？
And how much of it is simply based on trying to avoid litigation?
其中有多少只是为了避免诉讼？
And I would say it's probably a mix of both.
我想说这可能是两者的混合。
The problem is to try and figure out what that mix actually looks like is virtually impossible.
问题是试图弄清楚这种混合实际上是什么样子几乎是不可能的。
We called dozens of people.
我们给几十个人打了电话。
We called people who had licensing arrangements with Intellectual Ventures.
我们给那些与 Intellectual Ventures 有许可协议的人打了电话。
We called people who were defendants in lawsuits involving Intellectual Ventures patents.
我们给涉及 Intellectual Ventures 专利诉讼的被告人打了电话。
We called every single company being sued by Oasis Research, all 16 of them.
我们给所有被 Oasis Research 起诉的公司打了电话，总共 16 家公司。
No one would talk to us.
没有人愿意和我们说话。
Partly this is fear.
部分原因是恐惧。
Partly Intellectual Ventures is said to have the strictest non-disclosure agreement in Silicon Valley.
Partly Intellectual Ventures 据说拥有硅谷最严格的保密协议。
The Oasis Research case is still ongoing, but many of the original defendants seem to have settled.
绿洲研究案仍在审理中，但许多原被告似乎已经和解。
Michael Smith, the attorney in Marshall, Texas, who showed us the Oasis offices, represented one of those defendants.
德克萨斯州马歇尔市的律师迈克尔·史密斯（Michael Smith）向我们展示了绿洲办公室，他是其中一名被告的代理律师。
He was pretty sure they would have won the case if they'd gone to trial, but his client settled anyway.
他非常确定，如果他们接受审判，他们就会赢得这场官司，但他的客户还是和解了。
He says, sometimes it makes more sense to settle and pay a license fee than to spend $2 to $5 million on a court case.
他说，有时和解并支付许可费比花费 2 至 500 万美元打官司更有意义。
Tom Ewing, the lawyer who tracks Intellectual Ventures, says it's likely we're going to see plenty more of these cases in the future.
追踪 Intellectual Ventures 的律师汤姆·尤因 (Tom Ewing) 表示，未来我们可能会看到更多此类案件。
And that's based just on the math of IV's business model.
这只是基于 IV 商业模式的数学计算。
In order to purchase its 35,000 patents, Intellectual Ventures got money from investors-- a lot of money, more than $5 billion.
为了购买其 35,000 项专利，Intellectual Ventures 从投资者那里获得了资金——很多钱，超过 50 亿美元。
And a lot of these investors are venture capitalists who expect very high returns.
这些投资者中有很多是风险投资家，他们期望获得非常高的回报。
These are people who are looking for the next Google, the next Apple, people who want to get back many times what they put in.
这些人正在寻找下一个谷歌、下一个苹果，他们希望获得数倍于他们投入的回报。
Since its founding in 2000, Intellectual Ventures has generated $2 billion in revenue.
自 2000 年成立以来，Intellectual Ventures 已创造了 20 亿美元的收入。
But to keep its investors happy, over the next 10 years, says Tom Ewing, they're going to have to do a lot better than that.
但汤姆·尤因表示，为了让投资者满意，在接下来的十年里，他们必须做得比这更好。
So if you calculate this out, that means that over, say, a 10-year period, they are going to need to collect about $35 billion in licensing revenue.
因此，如果计算出来，这意味着在 10 年时间内，他们将需要获得约 350 亿美元的许可收入。
Which in order for them to be successful among the people who they're trying to compare themselves with.
这是为了让他们在那些他们试图与之比较的人中取得成功。
IV seems to have signed a number of deals.
IV似乎已经签署了一些协议。
If the stream of deals they're signing doesn't increase significantly, then I would imagine they will be forced to file more litigations in order to achieve their revenue targets.
如果他们签署的交易量没有显着增加，那么我想他们将被迫提起更多诉讼，以实现其收入目标。
Tom's prediction already seems to be coming true.
汤姆的预言似乎已经成为现实。
Earlier this month, Intellectual Ventures itself filed a patent infringement suit in federal court against several companies it claimed were infringing some patents it owns.
本月早些时候，Intellectual Ventures 向联邦法院提起专利侵权诉讼，声称几家公司侵犯了其拥有的部分专利。
In early July, the bankrupt tech company Nortel put its 6,000 patents up for auction as part of a liquidation.
7 月初，破产的科技公司 Nortel 将其 6,000 项专利进行拍卖，作为清算的一部分。
A bidding war broke out between the Silicon Valley powerhouses.
硅谷巨头之间爆发了一场竞购战。
Google said in press accounts that it wanted the patents purely to defend itself against lawsuits, and it was willing to spend over $3 billion to get them.
谷歌在新闻报道中表示，它希望获得这些专利纯粹是为了抵御诉讼，并且愿意花费超过 30 亿美元来获得这些专利。
But that wasn't enough.
但这还不够。
The portfolio eventually sold to Apple and a strange consortium of other tech companies, including Apple competitor Microsoft.
该投资组合最终卖给了苹果和一个由其他科技公司组成的奇怪财团，其中包括苹果的竞争对手微软。
The price tag?
价格标签？
$4.5 billion, five times the opening bid.
45亿美元，是起拍价的五倍。
More than double what most people were expecting.
是大多数人预期的两倍多。
The largest patent auction in history.
史上规模最大的专利拍卖。
Think of that.
想想看。
$4.5 billion on patents that these companies almost certainly don't want for their technical secrets.
这些公司几乎肯定不想要价值 45 亿美元的专利作为其技术秘密。
That $4.5 billion won't build anything new, won't bring new products to the shelves, won't open up new factories that can hire people who need jobs.
这 45 亿美元不会建造任何新产品，不会将新产品推向货架，也不会开设新工厂来雇用需要工作的人。
That's $4.5 billion that adds to the price of every product these companies sell you, $4.5 billion essentially wasted buying arms for an ongoing patent war.
这相当于这些公司向你出售的每件产品的价格增加了 45 亿美元，这 45 亿美元基本上浪费在为正在进行的专利战购买武器上。
The big companies-- Google, Apple, Microsoft-- will probably survive this war.
大公司——谷歌、苹果、微软——可能会在这场战争中幸存下来。
The likely casualties, the companies out there that no one's ever heard of that could one day take their place.
可能的伤亡，那些从未听说过的公司有一天可能会取代他们的位置。
Alex Blumberg with NPR correspondent Laura Sydell.
亚历克斯·布隆伯格 (Alex Blumberg) 与 NPR 记者劳拉·西德尔 (Laura Sydell)。
Alex is part of our Planet Money team.
Alex 是我们 Planet Money 团队的一员。
On the Planet Money website you can find links to all kinds of documents and patent-related goodies, plus, of course, their podcast.
在 Planet Money 网站上，您可以找到各种文档和专利相关内容的链接，当然还有他们的播客。
That is at npr.org/money.
网址为 npr.org/money。
[MUSIC - "MODERN INVENTIONS" BY THE SUBMARINES]
[音乐-潜艇的“现代发明”]
Our program was produced today with Ben Calhoun, Jane Feltes, Sarah Koenig, Eric Mennel, Jonathan Menjivar, Lisa Pollak, Robyn Semien, Alissa Shipp, and Nancy Updike.
我们的节目今天由本·卡尔霍恩、简·菲尔特斯、莎拉·科尼格、埃里克·门内尔、乔纳森·门吉瓦尔、丽莎·波拉克、罗宾·塞米恩、艾丽莎·希普和南希·厄普代克共同制作。
Our senior producer is Julie Snyder.
我们的高级制片人是朱莉·斯奈德。
Production help from Miki Meek.
Miki Meek 提供制作帮助。
Music help from Damien Graef.
达米安·格雷夫 (Damien Graef) 的音乐帮助。
Seth Lind is our production manager.
塞思·林德 (Seth Lind) 是我们的生产经理。
Emily Condon's our office manager.
艾米丽·康登是我们的办公室经理。
[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS] Our website, thisamericanlife.org.
[致谢] 我们的网站 thisamericanlife.org。
This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International.
《美国生活》由国际公共广播电台发行。
WBEZ management oversight for our show by our boss, Mr. Torey Malatia.
我们的老板 Torey Malatia 先生对我们的演出进行 WBEZ 管理监督。
I thought he would be so proud of our program this week.
我以为他会对我们这周的节目感到非常自豪。
I'm not proud at all because it's just like mumbo jumbo, which nobody understands whatsoever.
我一点也不自豪，因为这就像天方夜谭，没有人能理解。
I'm Ira Glass, back next with with more stories of this American life.
我是艾拉·格拉斯 (Ira Glass)，接下来我将带来更多有关美国生活的故事。
This American Life is produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago and delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange.
《This American Life》与 WBEZ Chicago 合作制作，并由 PRX 公共广播电台传送到各电台。