三星與蘋果的復雜專利戰

Laura Sydell: Apple and Samsung are out to get each other.

Carl Howe: This is officially World War III.

Laura: Carl Howe is an analyst with [1]Yankee Group.

Carl: I think this is a case of whether the iPhone really， as Apple claims， changed the world， in 2007.

Laura: Howe says think about the smartphone you had before that.

Carl: Phone designs were kind of 2)boxy and they had keyboards.

Laura: When iPhone came out， the commercials showed a hand interacting with the glowing elegant iPhone.

(Soundbite of commercial)

Narrator: This is how you turn it on. This is your music.

Laura: It had soft edges and a clear glass face.

(Soundbite of commercial)

Narrator: And this...is a call， on your iPhone.

勞拉·斯德爾：蘋果和三星都想徹底收服對方。

卡爾·霍維：這是正式的“第三次世界大戰”。

勞拉：卡爾·霍維是揚基集團的一位分析家。

卡爾：我認為這個案例是有關蘋果是否真如他們聲稱的那樣：在2007年改變了世界。

勞拉：霍維說回想一下（蘋果手機出現）之前你所擁有的智能手機的樣子。

卡爾：那時的手機外觀幾乎是四方形的，而且有鍵盤。

勞拉：當蘋果手機出現后，廣告展現了手與耀眼而雅致的蘋果手機之間的互動。

（廣告片段錄音）

旁白：你就像這樣開啟它，傾聽你的音樂。

勞拉：它有著光滑的邊緣和清晰的鏡面。（廣告片段錄音）

旁白：而這……是在你蘋果手機上接到的電話。

Laura: iPhone was a big hit and Howe says other smartphone makers， including Samsung， changed the way they designed their phones.

Carl: After iPhone was introduced， suddenly all the designs looked like black 3)slabs with touch 4)interfaces， no keyboards and lots of icons.

Laura: Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but in the world of business， where style and design are part of what make a brand like Apple unique， imitation is seen more as a way to confuse customers. Howe says Apple patented designs for its iPhone and iPad tablet.

Carl: They’re things like a flat， clear surface on the front of the product or a 5)rectangular product with four evenly 6)rounded corners. Lots of things that just sound like， oh， you can get a patent for that? But they fundamentally determine what the device looks like.

Laura: Samsung and Apple would not speak on tape for this story. A recent court filing by Apple compared pictures of Samsung smartphones before the iPhone， and after. Some of the earlier versions have keyboards or other buttons， and they have sharper corners.

Mark Lemley a professor at Stanford Law says the patent office isn’t always right when it grants patents. Take that rectangle， with the round corners.

Mark Lemley: That really is a patent of 7)stunning 8)breadth. If you take seriously the idea， when you look at the 9)diagram in the patent， that Apple gets to own a computer that’s shaped like a rectangle. Well， then designing around going to be very hard for Samsung or anybody else.

Laura: Other critics say， even if Apple did it best， it still wasn’t even the first to get a patent on these designs. David Martin is the chairman of [2]M-Cam， a company that evaluates the value of patents.

David Martin: The difference between the emotional response that says these things look alike and the actual construction of the patent law are two different things， and that line has been entirely blurred.

勞拉：蘋果手機大受歡迎，霍維說其他的智能手機制造商，包括三星，都改變了他們設計手機的方式。

卡爾：在蘋果手機引進之后，一瞬間所有智能手機設計看似都是帶觸摸屏界面的黑色厚片，沒有了鍵盤和大量的圖標。

勞拉：模仿也許是最虔誠的恭維方式，但在商業世界這個風格和外觀可部分造就一個如蘋果一樣獨一無二的品牌的地方，模仿更多的被視為一種迷惑消費者的手段。霍維表示，蘋果獨創的設計是為其蘋果手機和蘋果平板電腦服務的。

卡爾：它們（譯者注：這里指霍維所說的那些蘋果的獨創設計）是諸如產品正面的平滑、清晰的表面，還有具有平坦圓角的矩形產品。哦，聽起來是很多東西，難道你都可以為此去申請個專利？但它們從根本上決定了這臺機器的模樣。

勞拉：三星和蘋果公司不愿對此置評。蘋果公司最近向法院提交的一份文件對比了三星智能手機在蘋果手機出現之前和之后的圖片。一些早期的手機款式是有鍵盤或者其他按鍵的，而且它們的四角也更銳利。

馬克·萊姆利是斯坦福大學法學院的一位教授，他說專利局在授予專利時也并非總是正確，像這種有著圓角的矩形產品就是個例子。

馬克·萊姆利：那個專利確實有著令人驚訝的大尺度。當你接受專利圖時，如果你認真看待這個創意了，那么蘋果公司就開始獨家擁有形似矩形的電腦。于是對于三星公司或其他任何人來說，專利回避設計就將變得非常困難。

勞拉：另外一些評論家說即使蘋果用盡全力，它都無法在這些設計上最先拿到專利權。大衛·馬丁是M-Cam公司的董事長，M-Cam是一家評估專利價值的公司。

大衛·馬丁：情感反應說這些東西看上去很相似，而專利法的實際構建是兩種不同的東西，差異的界限已經完全模糊。

Laura: Emotional response may be Apple’s most effective weapon， especially in this case. Apple did change the way people use and think about smartphones and they opened up a new market for tablet computers. And analyst Carl Howe says they may be able to make a sympathetic case to 10)jurors.

Carl: One of the things Apple is good at， they’re really good at presenting information， in very influencing ways. So I would actually give them an edge simply because they’re probably going to be able to make their case in a way that a jury will understand.

Laura: And this is just one of many cases in the U.S. and around the world where Apple is pursing Samsung and other rivals， such as HTC. In all of them， the other companies pull out a few patents of their own and sue Apple right back. Stanford Professor Mark Lemley thinks it’s a sign that something is wrong with the patent system， which is meant to promote innovation.

Mark: They’ve probably spent $700 million in legal fees and at the end of the day， everybody has got enough patents that they could all interfere with each other making products. That’s not the way we want innovation to work.

Laura: And for consumers， this might bring higher prices and fewer choices. In fact， in Europe a judge banned Samsung’s Galaxy 7.7 tablet from stores. But for Apple， which recently saw sales of its iPhone slow， this may be a battle worth fighting.

勞拉：情感反應也許是蘋果公司最有效的武器，特別是在這個案例中。蘋果公司改變了人們使用和看待智能手機的方式，而且他們還為平板電腦開辟了一個新市場。分析家卡爾·霍維說他們也許能夠向陪審員提出一個值得同情的案例。

卡爾：蘋果公司很擅長的其中一件事就是，他們真的很會提供頗有影響力的信息。所以就因為他們將很可能讓他們的案例以一種陪審員會理解的方式來闡明，我都認為他們更有優勢。

勞拉：這只是美國乃至世界范圍內，蘋果公司和三星及其他競爭對手，比如HTC的訴訟案中的一例。在所有這些案例當中，其他公司拿出自己擁有的少數幾個專利來起訴蘋果公司，以作反擊。斯坦福大學教授馬克·萊姆利認為這表明專利系統中存在某些問題，注定需要改革。

馬克：他們大概已經花了70億美金的訴訟費，到了最后大家都擁有足夠多的專利來干擾彼此的產品生產。這不是我們想要改革起到的作用。

勞拉：而對于消費者來說，這可能導致更高的價格和更少的選擇。在歐洲，的確有一個法官禁止三星Galaxy7.7平板電腦在商店出售。但對于目睹近期蘋果手機銷售增長緩慢的蘋果公司來說，這或許是一場值得打下去的戰爭。[1] Yankee Group 揚基集團，在通訊和網絡領域從事研究與咨詢的全球領軍者。該公司幫助商家理解對通信與信息交互起驅動作用的產品與服務的開發、部署與消費，幫助他們認識這一過程中的機會、風險與競爭壓力。

[2] M-CAM 美國著名的專業知識產權分析和評估機構。它創建了世界上第一個智能化的專利風險評估系統，得到紐約銀行威斯敏斯特研究集團的高度肯定并向全球發布。