danger-of-software-patents.html - en to zh_TW translation catalogue (205 entries)

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en: The Danger of Software Patents - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
zh_TW: 軟體專利的風險 - GNU 專案 - 自由軟體基金會

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en: The Danger of Software Patents
zh_TW: 軟體專利的風險

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en: SF:
zh_TW: SF：

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en: My name is Susy Frankel and on behalf of myself and Meredith Kolsky Lewis, I'd like to welcome you to this seminar hosted by the New Zealand Centre for International Economic Law.  Brenda Chawner, who is part of the Victoria University School of Information Management, rather than the Centre I just named being part of the Law Faculty, is really responsible for bringing Richard Stallman back to New Zealand and hosting his tour of New Zealand, including this stop here in Wellington tonight.  She's unfortunately unable to be with us at this moment because she's doing what we do in universities which is teach.
zh_TW: 我的名字是 Susy Frankel，我代表我和 Meredith Kolsky Lewis 歡迎你們參加紐西蘭國際經濟法中心主辦的這次研討會。Brenda Chawner 是維多利亞大學資訊管理學院的一員，而非我剛剛所說中心的法學院的一員，他負責將 Richard Stallman 帶到紐西蘭並主持他的紐西蘭之行，包括今晚在惠靈頓的這一站。不幸的是，她現在不能和我們在一起，因為她正在教書，這正是我們在大學裡做的事。

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en: Richard Stallman needs little introduction.  Nonetheless, for some of you who have not heard of him previously, he has launched the development of the GNU operating system.  I had never heard GNU said before, and I went online to YouTube (where would we be be without YouTube)&hellip;
zh_TW: Richard Stallman 幾乎不需要介紹。但以防有先前沒聽說過他的人，他開創了 GNU 作業系統的發展。我以前不知道 "GNU" 怎麼唸，所以我上網查了YouTube。（如果沒有 YouTube 我們該怎麼辦）……

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en: RMS:
zh_TW: RMS：

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en: Oh, you shouldn't recommend YouTube, because they distribute in a patented video format.
zh_TW: 喔，你不該推薦 YouTube 的，因為他們是用專利影片格式播送的。

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en: Good point.  I only recommend it for the point that I thought do you say G&nbsp;N&nbsp;U or GNU?
zh_TW: 很棒的想法，但我只是用來確定唸法是 G N U（分開念）或是 GNU（合在一起念，音近似革奴） ?

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en: Wikipedia says that.  [The answer is, pronounce it as a one syllable, with a hard G.]
zh_TW: 維基百科有寫。（答案是，當作一個詞發音，G 加重音）

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en: Yes, but live I heard you say it on YouTube.  But nonetheless, the important point is that it's not proprietorial.  But the most interesting point is that Richard has received many honors for his work.  My favorite, and therefore the one that I'm going to mention, is the Takeda Award for Social and Economic Betterment, and I imagine we're going to hear a lot of that tonight, so join me in welcoming Richard.
zh_TW: 是的，但我能從 YouTube 上直接聽到你唸。不提這個，重點是它並不是專有名詞。但最有趣的點是 Richard 藉由他的的工作得到了很多榮譽。我最喜歡並提出的點，是武田基金會對於社會／經濟福祉頒發的獎項，而我認為我們今晚將會聽到許多相關的內容，所以讓我們歡迎 Richard。

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en: First of all, I'd like to mention one of the reasons why I'm drinking this [a can or bottle of a cola which is not coke] is there's a worldwide boycott of Coca-Cola Company for murdering union organizers in Colombia.  Look at the site <a href="http://killercoke.org">killercoke.org</a>.  And they're not talking about the effects of drinking the product&mdash;after all, the same might be true of many other products&mdash;it's murder.  So before you buy any drink product, look at the fine print and see if it's made by Coca-Cola Company.
zh_TW: 首先，我想提其中一個我喝這個（一罐或一瓶可樂，但不是可口可樂）的原因，是世界性對於可口可樂公司謀殺哥倫比亞工會成員的抵制。可以去看<a href="http://killercoke.org">killercoke.org</a>的網站。但那不是在討論喝這種飲料（對身體）的影響（畢竟許多其他飲料都相同）而是它的謀殺案。所以當你買任何飲料的時候，記得查看詳細的標籤，確認是不是可口可樂公司的產品。

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en: I'm most known for starting the free software movement and leading development of the GNU operating system&mdash;although most of the people who use the system mistakenly believe it's Linux and think it was started by somebody else a decade later.  But I'm not going to be speaking about any of that today.  I'm here to talk about a legal danger to all software developers, distributors, and users: the danger of patents&mdash;on computational ideas, computational techniques, an idea for something you can do on a computer.
zh_TW: 我最出名的是開始自由軟體運動和領導 GNU 作業系統的開發——儘管大多數使用該系統的人錯誤地認為它是 Linux，並認為它是十年後由其他人開始的。但我今天不會談論這些，我在這裡是要談論所有軟體開發人員、經銷商和使用者的法律風險：專利的風險——關於電腦理念、電腦技術、在電腦上可以做的事情的想法。

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en: Now, to understand this issue, the first thing you need to realize is that patent law has nothing to do with copyright law&mdash;they're totally different.  Whatever you learn about one of them, you can be sure it doesn't apply to the other.
zh_TW: 現在，要理解這個問題，首先你需要意識到，專利法與著作權法無關 —— 它們完全不同。只要你瞭解其中任一個，你都可以確定它不適用於另一個。

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en: So, for example, any time a person makes a statement about &ldquo;intellectual property,&rdquo; that's spreading confusion, because it's lumping together not only these two laws but also at least a dozen others.  They're all different, and the result is any statement which purports to be about &ldquo;intellectual property&rdquo; is pure confusion&mdash;either the person making the statement is confused, or the person is trying to confuse others.  But either way, whether it's accidental or malicious, it's confusion.
zh_TW: 因此，每當一個人發表關於「智慧財產權」的聲明時，就會造成混亂，因為它不僅將這兩項法律混為一談，而且至少還會將其他十幾條法律混為一談。他們都是不同的，結果是任何聲稱是關於「智慧財產權」的聲明都是純粹的混淆——不論是陳述的人感到困惑，或是這個人試圖混淆他人。但無論哪種方式，無論是意外還是惡意，它都令人費解。

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en: Protect yourself from this confusion by rejecting any statement which makes use of that term.  The only way to make thoughtful comments and think clear thoughts about any one of these laws is to distinguish it first from all the others, and talk or think about one particular law, so that we can understand what it actually does and then form conclusions about it.  So I'll be talking about patent law, and what happens in those countries which have allowed patent law to restrict software.
zh_TW: 你們該拒絕使用對該術語的任何陳述，從而保護自己免受這種混亂。對這些法律中的任何一項作出深思熟慮的評論和思考的唯一方法是首先將其與其他法律區分開來，並討論或思考一項特定的法律，以便我們能夠理解它實際上做什麼，然後才形成結論。因此，我將討論專利法，以及那些允許專利法限制軟體的國家會發生什麼。

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en: So, what does a patent do? A patent is an explicit, government-issued monopoly on using a certain idea.  In the patent there's a part called the claims, which describe exactly what you're not allowed to do (although they're written in a way you probably can't understand).  It's a struggle to figure out what those prohibitions actually mean, and they may go on for many pages of fine print.
zh_TW: 那麼，專利是做什麼的呢？專利是政府明令授權的對使用某種想法的壟斷。在專利中有一個部分叫做聲明，它準確地描述了你不允許做什麼（儘管它們是以你可能無法理解的方式寫的）。很難弄清楚這些禁令的真正含義，而它們可能會是非常多頁的精美印刷品。

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en: So the patent typically lasts for 20 years, which is a fairly long time in our field.  Twenty years ago there was no World Wide Web&mdash;a tremendous amount of the use of computers goes on in an area which wasn't even possible to propose 20 years ago.  So of course everything that people do on it is something that's new since 20 years ago&mdash;at least in some aspect it is new.  So if patents had been applied for we'd be prohibited from doing all of it, and we may be prohibited from doing all of it in countries that have been foolish enough to have such a policy.
zh_TW: 而專利通常持續20年，這是在我們領域中相當長的時間。20年前，世界上還沒有全球資訊網 —— 電腦的大量使用發生在20年前甚至不可能被提出的地方。因此，當然，人們在它上所做的一切都是20年前以來的新事物 —— 至少在某些方面它是新的。因此，如果專利已經申請，我們將被禁止做這一切的事情，我們可能已經被愚蠢到有這樣的政策的國家禁止做這一切。

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en: Most of the time, when people describe the function of the patent system, they have a vested interest in the system.  They may be patent lawyers, or they may work in the Patent Office, or they may be in the patent office of a megacorporation, so they want you to like the system.
zh_TW: 大多數時候，當人們描述專利制度的功能時，他們對專利制度有既得利益。他們可能是專利律師，或者他們可能在專利局工作，或者他們可能在一家大型公司的專利部門工作，所以他們想讓你喜歡這個系統。

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en: The <cite>Economist</cite> once referred to the patent system as &ldquo;a time-consuming lottery.&rdquo; If you've ever seen publicity for a lottery, you understand how it works: they dwell on the very unlikely probability of winning, and they don't talk about the overwhelming likelihood of losing.  In this way, they intentionally and systematically present a biased picture of what's likely to happen to you, without actually lying about any particular fact.
zh_TW: <cite>《經濟學人》</cite> 曾將專利制度稱為「耗時的樂透」。如果你見過樂透的宣傳，你就會明白它是如何運作的：他們沉溺於很低的中獎可能性，而且他們不談論輸樂透的絕對可能性。這樣，他們故意且有系統地呈現了可能發生在你身上的偏頗畫面，而實際上並沒有對任何特定事實撒謊。

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en: It's the same way for the publicity for the patent system: they talk about what it's like to walk down the street with a patent in your pocket&mdash;or first of all, what it's like to get a patent, then what it's like to have a patent in your pocket, and every so often you can pull it out and point it at somebody and say, &ldquo;Give me your money.&rdquo;
zh_TW: 這與專利制度的宣傳是同樣的方式：他們談論著帶著專利走在街上的感覺——或者首先，獲得專利是什麼感覺，然後是擁有專利的感覺，而且你可以經常把它拿出來，指著某人說：「把你的錢給我。」

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en: To compensate for their bias, I'm going to describe it from the other side, the victim side&mdash;what it's like for people who want to develop or distribute or run software.  You have to worry that any day someone might walk up to you and point a patent at you and say, &ldquo;Give me your money.&rdquo;
zh_TW: 為了彌補他們的偏見，我要從另一面來看，以受害者的角度 —— 對於那些想要開發、散佈或執行軟體的人來說是什麼感覺。你必須擔心有一天，有人可能會走到你面前，指著一個專利，並說：「給我你的錢。」

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en: If you want to develop software in a country that allows software patents, and you want to work with patent law, what will you have to do?
zh_TW: 如果你想在一個允許軟體專利的國家開發軟體，並且你想與專利法合作，你該做些什麼？

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en: You could try to make a list of all the ideas that one might be able to find in the program that you're about to write, aside from the fact that you don't know that when you start writing the program.  [But] even after you finish writing the program you wouldn't be able to make such a list.
zh_TW: 你可以試著列出所有人們能夠在你即將寫的程式中找到的想法；但事實上，當你剛開始寫程式時，你並不會知道這些。然而，即使你寫完程式，你也無法列出這樣的清單。

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en: The reason is&hellip; in the process you conceived of it in one particular way&mdash;you've got a mental structure to apply to your design.  And because of that, it will block you from seeing other structures that somebody might use to understand the same program&mdash;because you're not coming to it fresh; you already designed it with one structure in mind.  Someone else who sees it for the first time might see a different structure, which involves different ideas, and it would be hard for you to see what those other ideas are.  But nonetheless they're implemented in your program, and those patents could prohibit your program, if those ideas are patented.
zh_TW: 原因是……在你以一種特定的方式構思的過程中 —— 你有一個心中的結構可以應用於你的設計。正因為如此，它會阻止你看到別人可能用來理解同一程式的其他結構 —— 因為你不會不斷的更新它：你已經在心中設計了一個結構。第一次看到它的其他人可能會看到不同的結構，它涉及到不同的想法，你很難看到其他的想法是什麼。但是，它們還是在你的程式中實作的，如果這些想法獲得專利，這些專利可能會禁止您的程式。

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en: For instance, suppose there were graphical-idea patents and you wanted to draw a square.  Well, you would realize that if there was a patent on a bottom edge, it would prohibit your square.  You could put &ldquo;bottom edge&rdquo; on the list of all ideas implemented in your drawing.  But you might not realize that somebody else with a patent on bottom corners could sue you easily also, because he could take your drawing and turn it by 45 degrees.  And now your square is like this, and it has a bottom corner.
zh_TW: 例如，假設有個圖形創意專利，而你想畫一個正方形。嗯，你會意識到，如果有一個專利在底邊，它會禁止你畫你的正方形。你可以將「底邊」 放在繪圖中實施的所有想法清單中。但你可能沒有意識到，在底角擁有專利的其他人也可以輕易起訴你，因為他可以拿走你的畫，將它旋轉 45 度。現在你的正方形是這樣的，它有一個底角。

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en: So you couldn't make a list of all the ideas which, if patented, could prohibit your program.
zh_TW: 因此，您無法列出所有獲得專利的想法的清單，這些想法可能會禁止你撰寫你的程式。

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en: What you might try to do is find out all the ideas that are patented that might be in your program.  Now you can't do that actually, because patent applications are kept secret for at least eighteen months; and the result is the Patent Office could be considering now whether to issue a patent, and they won't tell you.  And this is not just an academic, theoretical possibility.
zh_TW: 你或許可以嘗試找出所有可能在你的程式中有專利的想法。但事實上現在你無法如此做，因為專利申請被保密至少18個月；而專利局可以考慮是否頒發專利，並且他們不會告訴你。這不僅僅是一個學術的、理論上的可能性。

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en: For instance, in 1984 the Compress program was written, a program for compressing files using the <abbr title="Lempel-Ziv-Welch"> LZW</abbr> data compression algorithm, and at that time there was no patent on that algorithm for compressing files.  The author got the algorithm from an article in a journal.  That was when we thought that the purpose of computer science journals was to publish algorithms so people could use them.
zh_TW: 舉例來說，Compress 程式在1984年被編寫出來，這是一個使用 <abbr title="Lempel-Ziv-Welch"> LZW</abbr> 資料壓縮演算法壓縮檔案的程式，當時該演算法沒有用於壓縮檔案的專利。作者從期刊上的一篇文章中獲得了演算法。那時我們認為電腦科學期刊的目的是發佈演算法，讓人們可以使用它們。

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en: He wrote this program, he released it, and in 1985 a patent was issued on that algorithm.  But the patent holder was cunning and didn't immediately go around telling people to stop using it.  The patent holder figured, &ldquo;Let's let everybody dig their grave deeper.&rdquo; A few years later they started threatening people; it became clear we couldn't use Compress, so I asked for people to suggest other algorithms we could use for compressing files.
zh_TW: 他編寫了這個程式並發佈了它，然後在1985年申請了該演算法的專利。但專利持有人很狡猾，沒有立即告訴人們停止使用它。專利持有人想：「我們可以讓每個人都陷得更深。」幾年後，他們開始威脅別人：很明顯，我們不能使用壓縮，所以我要求人們建議其他可以用於壓縮檔案的演算法。

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en: And somebody wrote and said, &ldquo;I developed another data compression algorithm that works better, I've written a program, I'd like to give it to you.&rdquo; So we got ready to release it, and a week before it was ready to be released, I read in the <cite>New York Times</cite> weekly patent column, which I rarely saw&mdash;it's a couple of times a year I might see it&mdash;but just by luck I saw that someone had gotten a patent for &ldquo;inventing a new method of compressing data.&rdquo; And so I said we had better look at this, and sure enough it covered the program we were about to release.  But it could have been worse: the patent could have been issued a year later, or two years later, or three years later, or five years later.
zh_TW: 而有人寫道：「我開發了另一種效果更好的資料壓縮演算法，我寫了一個程式，我想把它給你。」因此，我們準備發佈它。在它準備發佈前一周，我在<cite>《紐約時報》</cite>每周專利專欄中讀到，我很少看到 —— 也許一年有幾次 —— 但幸運的是，我看到有人因為「發明了一種新的壓縮資料方法」而獲得了專利。所以我說，我們最好看看這個，並確認它涵蓋了我們即將發佈的程式。但情況可能更糟：該專利可能在一年、兩年、三年或五年後頒發。

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en: Anyway, someone else came up with another, even better compression algorithm, which was used in the program gzip, and just about everybody who wanted to compress files switched to gzip, so it sounds like a happy ending.  But you'll hear more later.  It's not entirely so happy.
zh_TW: 無論如何，有人想出了另一個更好的壓縮演算法，這是在程式 gzip 中使用的，提供給所有想要把壓縮檔換成 gzip 的人，所以它聽起來像一個快樂的結局。但稍後你會聽到更多。這不完全是那麼愉快。

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en: So, you can't find out about the patents that are being considered even though they may prohibit your work once they come out, but you can find out about the already issued patents.  They're all published by the Patent Office.  The problem is you can't read them all, because there are too many of them.
zh_TW: 所以，你無法找出正在審核的專利，即使它們一旦通過可能會禁止你的工作。但你可以找出已經頒發的專利。它們都由專利局出版。問題是你沒辦法全部閱讀，因為實在是太多了。

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en: In the US I believe there are hundreds of thousands of software patents; keeping track of them would be a tremendous job.  So you're going to have to search for relevant patents.  And you'll find a lot of relevant patents, but you won't necessarily find them all.
zh_TW: 在美國，我相信有數十萬項軟體專利：追蹤它們會是相當艱困的工作。因此，你必須搜尋相關的專利。而你會發現很多相關的專利，但你不一定能全部找到。

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en: So if you were writing a spreadsheet and you tried to find relevant patents by searching, you might have found a lot of patents.  But you wouldn't have found this one until you told somebody, &ldquo;Oh, I'm working on a spreadsheet,&rdquo; and he said, &ldquo;Oh, did you know those other companies that are making spreadsheets are getting sued?&rdquo; Then you would have found out.
zh_TW: 因此，如果您正在編寫試算表，並且試圖透過搜尋找到相關專利，您可能已經找到很多專利。但是，除非你告訴別人：「哦，我正在製作試算表。」然後他說，「哦，你知道其他製作試算表的公司被起訴了嗎？」那時你才會知道。

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en: Well, you can't find all the patents by searching, but you can find a lot of them.  And then you've got to figure out what they mean, which is hard, because patents are written in tortuous legal language which is very hard to understand the real meaning of.  So you're going to have to spend a lot of time talking with an expensive lawyer explaining what you want to do in order to find out from the lawyer whether you're allowed to do it.
zh_TW: 嗯，你無法通過搜尋找到所有的專利，但你可以找到很多專利。然後，你必須弄清楚它們的意思，這是很難的，因為專利是用曲折的法律語言寫的，很難理解其真正含義。所以，你將不得不花很多時間與費用十分高昂的律師交談，解釋你想做什麼，以便從律師那裡知道你是否被允許這樣做。

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en: Even the patent holders often can't recognize just what their patents mean.  For instance, there's somebody named Paul Heckel who released a program for displaying a lot of data on a small screen, and based on a couple of the ideas in that program he got a couple of patents.
zh_TW: 即使是專利持有人也常常不能認識到他們的專利意味著什麼。例如，有一個叫 Paul Heckel 的人發佈了一項程式，在一個小螢幕上顯示大量資料，並以該計劃中的幾個想法為基礎取得了多項專利。

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en: I once tried to find a simple way to describe what claim 1 of one of those patents covered.  I found that I couldn't find any simpler way of saying it than what was in the patent itself; and that sentence, I couldn't manage to keep it all in my mind at once, no matter how hard I tried.
zh_TW: 我曾經試圖找到一個簡單的方法來描述其中一項專利中涉及的聲明。我發現，我找不到任何比專利本身更簡單的敘述方式；但那個句子，無論我多麼努力地嘗試，都無法一次全部記住。

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en: And Heckel couldn't follow it either, because when he saw HyperCard, all he noticed was it was nothing like his program.  It didn't occur to him that the way his patent was written it might prohibit HyperCard; but his lawyer had that idea, so he threatened Apple.  And then he threatened Apple's customers, and eventually Apple made a settlement with him which is secret, so we don't know who really won.  And this is just an illustration of how hard it is for anybody to understand what a patent does or doesn't prohibit.
zh_TW: 就連 Heckel 也無法完全理解他的專利能做些什麼，因為當他看到 HyperCard，他只會注意到這一點也不像他的程式。他沒有想到，他的專利的寫作方式可能會禁止 HyperCard；但他的律師有這個想法，所以他威脅 Apple。然後他威脅 Apple 的客戶，最終 Apple 與他達成了一個秘密協定，所以我們不知道誰真正贏了。這只是說明任何人都很難理解專利到底禁止或不禁止什麼。

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en: In fact, I once gave this speech and Heckel was in the audience.  And at this point he jumped up and said, &ldquo;That's not true, I just didn't know the scope of my protection.&rdquo; And I said, &ldquo;Yeah, that's what I said,&rdquo; at which point he sat down and that was the end of my experience being heckled by Heckel.  If I had said no, he probably would have found a way to argue with me.
zh_TW: 事實上，我曾經發表過這樣的演講，Heckel 也出現在聽眾席上。 這時，他跳了起來說：「那不是真的，我只是不知道我的保護範圍。」我說：「是的，我就是這麼說的。」這時他坐了下來，那是我被 Heckel 責駡的經歷的結束。如果我說不，他可能會想方設法來和我爭論。

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en: Anyway, after a long, expensive conversation with a lawyer, the lawyer will give you an answer like this:
zh_TW: 無論如何，在與律師進行了長時間且收費高昂的談話後，律師可能會給你這樣的答案：

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en: If you do something in this area, you're almost certain to lose a lawsuit; if you do something in this area, there's a considerable chance of losing a lawsuit; and if you really want to be safe you've got to stay out of this area.  But there's a sizeable element of chance in the outcome of any lawsuit.
zh_TW: 如果你在這方面有所作為，你幾乎肯定會輸掉訴訟；如果你在那方面有所作為，就很有可能輸掉訴訟；如果你真的保障自己的安全，你必須遠離這個方面。但是，任何訴訟的結果都有相當大的可能。

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en: So now that you have clear, predictable rules for doing business, what are you actually going to do? Well, there are three things that you could do to deal with the issue of any particular patent.  One is to avoid it, another is to get a license for it, and the third is to invalidate it.  So I'll talk about these one by one.
zh_TW: 所以，既然你有明確、可預測的業務規則，你到底要做什麼？嗯，你可以做三件事來處理任何特定的專利問題。一個是避免它，另一個是獲得授權，第三個是使其無效。所以我會逐一談論這些事情。

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en: First, there's the possibility of avoiding the patent, which means, don't implement what it prohibits.  Of course, if it's hard to tell what it prohibits, it might be hard to tell what would suffice to avoid it.
zh_TW: 首先，避免專利是有可能的，這意味著，不執行它所禁止的行為。當然，如果很難說它禁止什麼，也可能很難說什麼足以避免它。

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en: A couple of years ago Kodak sued Sun [for] using a patent for something having to do with object-oriented programming, and Sun didn't think it was infringing that patent.  But the court decided it was; and when other people look at that patent they haven't the faintest idea whether that decision was right or not.  No one can tell what that patent does or doesn't cover, but Sun had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars because of violating a completely incomprehensible law.
zh_TW: 幾年前，柯達起訴昇陽（因為）使用專利進行某些與物件導向程式設計有關的事情，而昇陽並不認為它侵犯了該專利。但法院裁定它違反了專利；當其他人觀看那個專利時，他們不知道這個決定是否正確。沒有人能分辨出該專利涵蓋或不涵蓋什麼，但昇陽不得不支付數億美元，因為違反了一個完全難以理解的法律。

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en: Sometimes you can tell what you need to avoid, and sometimes what you need to avoid is an algorithm.
zh_TW: 有時你可以分辨你需要避免什麼，有時你需要避免的是一個演算法。

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en: For instance, I saw a patent for something like the fast Fourier transform, but it ran twice as fast.  Well, if the ordinary FFT is fast enough for your application then that's an easy way to avoid this other one.  And most of the time that would work.  Once in a while you might be trying to do something where it runs doing FFT all the time, and it's just barely fast enough using the faster algorithm.  And then you can't avoid it, although maybe you could wait a couple of years for a faster computer.  But that's going to be rare.  Most of the time that patent will to be easy to avoid.
zh_TW: 例如，我看到了一個快速傅立葉轉換的專利，而它的執行速度是原先的兩倍。那麼，如果普通的快速傅立葉轉換對於您的應用程式來說足夠快，那麼這是一個簡單的避免方法。而且大多數時候，這會是有效的。偶爾，你可能會嘗試做某些事，但僅僅運用快速傅立葉轉換而不使用更快的演算法的情況下，只是勉強夠快。於是你無法避免它，雖然你也許可以等待幾年出現更快的電腦。但這種情況很少見。大多數時候，專利是很容易避免的。

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en: On the other hand, a patent on an algorithm may be impossible to avoid.  Consider the LZW data compression algorithm.  Well, as I explained, we found a better data compression algorithm, and everybody who wanted to compress files switched to the program gzip which used the better algorithm.  And the reason is, if you just want to compress the file and uncompress it later, you can tell people to use this program to uncompress it; then you can use any program with any algorithm, and you only care how well it works.
zh_TW: 另一方面，演算法上的專利可能無法避免。提到 LZW 資料壓縮演算法。嗯，正如我解釋的，我們找到了一個更好的資料壓縮演算法，每個想要壓縮檔的人都切換到使用更好演算法的程式 gzip 。原因是，如果您只想壓縮檔並在以後解壓縮，您可以告訴人們使用此程式來解壓縮它；然後，您可以使用任何程式與任何演算法，你只關心它是如何運作的。

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en: But LZW is used for other things, too; for instance the PostScript language specifies operators for LZW compression and LZW uncompression.  It's no use having another, better algorithm because it makes a different format of data.  They're not interoperable.  If you compress it with the gzip algorithm, you won't be able to uncompress it using LZW.  So no matter how good your other algorithm is, and no matter what it is, it just doesn't enable you to implement PostScript according to the specs.
zh_TW: 但 LZW 還有其他用途：例如，PostScript 語言指定了 LZW 壓縮和 LZW 解壓縮的運算程式。擁有另一種更好的演算法是沒有用的，因為它會產生不同的資料格式。此時它們並沒有互操作性。如果您使用 gzip 演算法壓縮它，則無法使用 LZW 解壓縮它。 因此，無論你的其他演算法有多好，無論它是什麼，它只是不能讓你根據規範實作 PostScript。

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en: But I noticed that users rarely ask their printers to compress things.  Generally the only thing they want their printers to do is to uncompress; and I also noticed that both of the patents on the LZW algorithm were written in such a way that if your system can only uncompress, it's not forbidden.  These patents were written so that they covered compression, and they had other claims covering both compression and uncompression; but there was no claim covering only uncompression.  So I realized that if we implement only the uncompression for LZW, we would be safe.  And although it would not satisfy the specification, it would please the users sufficiently; it would do what they actually needed.  So that's how we barely squeaked by avoiding the two patents.
zh_TW: 但我注意到，使用者很少要求他們的印表機壓縮東西。 一般來說，他們唯一希望自己的印表機做的是解壓縮；我也注意到，LZW 演算法的兩項專利都是以這樣的方式編寫的：如果你的系統只能解壓縮，它不是被禁止的。這些專利的編寫，使他們涵蓋壓縮，他們有其他聲明，包括壓縮和解壓縮；但沒有聲明只涵蓋解壓縮。所以我意識到，如果我們只對 LZW 實作解壓縮，我們會是安全的。雖然這無法滿足規範，但其足以讓使用者滿意；可以做他們真正需要的。因此，我們幾乎可以避免兩項專利。

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en: Well, it's pretty obvious what's going on&mdash;GIF was a de facto standard.  In effect, asking people to switch to a different format, instead of their de facto standard, is like asking everyone in New Zealand to speak Hungarian.  People will say, &ldquo;Well, yeah, I'll learn to speak it after everyone else does.&rdquo; And so we never succeeded in asking people to stop using GIF, even though one of those patent holders was going around to operators of web sites, threatening to sue them unless they could prove that all of the GIFs on the site were made with authorized, licensed software.
zh_TW: 好吧，這很明顯是怎麼回事 —— GIF 是事實上的標準。實際上，要求人們改用其他格式，而不是事實上的標準，就像要求紐西蘭的每個人說匈牙利語一樣。人們會說：「嗯，是的，我會在其他所有人都學會之後再說。」因此，我們也從未成功地要求人們停止使用 GIF，即使其中一位專利持有人四處走動到網站的經營者那裡，威脅除非他們可以證明網站上的所有 GIF 都是經授權的軟體製作的，否則就要起訴他們。

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en: So GIF was a dangerous trap for a large part of our community.  We thought we had an alternative to GIF format, namely JPEG, but then somebody said, &ldquo;I was just looking through my portfolio of patents&rdquo;&mdash;I think it was somebody that just bought patents and used them to threaten people&mdash;and he said, &ldquo;and I found that one of them covers JPEG format.&rdquo;
zh_TW: 因此，GIF 對我們社群的大部分人是一個危險的陷阱。我們以為我們可以用 JPEG 格式替代 GIF，但有人說：「我只是在瀏覽我的專利組合。」—— 我認為是有人購買了專利並用它們來威脅人們。他說：「我發現其中之一涵蓋了 JPEG 格式。」

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en: Well, JPEG was not a de facto standard, it's an official standard, issued by a standards committee; and the committee had a lawyer too.  Their lawyer said he didn't think that this patent actually covered JPEG format.
zh_TW: 嗯，JPEG 不是事實上的標準，它是由標準委員會發布的正式標準。委員會也有律師。他們的律師說，他不認為該專利實際上涵蓋了 JPEG 格式。

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en: So who's right? Well, this patent holder sued a bunch of companies, and if there was a decision, it would have said who was right.  But I haven't heard about a decision; I'm not sure if there ever was one.  I think they settled, and the settlement is almost certainly secret, which means that it didn't tell us anything about who's right.
zh_TW: 那誰是對的？好吧，這個專利持有人起訴了許多公司，如果有決定，它會說誰是對的。但是我還沒有聽說過決定。我不確定是否曾經有過。我認為他們和解了，而且幾乎可以確定是祕密和解，這代表了它沒有告訴我們任何關於誰是對的事情。

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en: These are fairly lightweight cases: one patent on JPEG, two patents on the LZW algorithm used in GIF.  Now you might wonder how come there are two patents on the same algorithm? It's not supposed to happen, but it did.  And the reason is that the patent examiners can't possibly take the time to study every pair of things they might need to study and compare, because they're not allowed to take that much time.  And because algorithms are just mathematics, there's no way you can narrow down which applications and patents you need to compare.
zh_TW: 這些案例相當輕巧：一項是 JPEG 的專利，兩項是 GIF 中使用的 LZW 演算法的專利。現在您可能想知道為什麼同一算法有兩項專利？它不應該發生，但是確實發生了。原因是專利審查員不可能花時間研究他們可能需要研究和比較的每項事物，因為他們不被允許花費那麼多時間。而且由於演算法只是數學，所以你無法縮小需要比較的申請和專利的範圍。

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en: You see, in physical engineering fields, they can use the physical nature of what's going on to narrow things down.  For instance, in chemical engineering, they can say, &ldquo;What are the substances going in? What are the substances coming out?&rdquo; If two different [patent] applications are different in that way, then they're not the same process so you don't need to worry.  But the same math can be represented in ways that can look very different, and until you study them both together, you don't realize they're talking about the same thing.  And, because of this, it's quite common to see the same thing get patented multiple times [in software].
zh_TW: 您會看到，在物理工程領域，他們可以利用正在發生的事情的物理性質來縮小範圍。例如，在化學工程中，他們可以說：「其中加入了什麼物質？有什麼物質產生出來？」如果兩個不同的（專利）應用以這種方式不同，則它們不是同樣的過程，因此您不必擔心。但是，相同的數學可以用看起來非常不同的方式來表示，並且除非您將它們一起研究，否則您不會意識到它們在談論同一件事。而且，因此，經常會看到同一事物多次獲得（軟體）的專利權。

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en: Remember that program that was killed by a patent before we released it? Well, that algorithm got patented twice also.  In one little field we've seen it happen in two cases that we ran into&mdash;the same algorithm being patented twice.  Well, I think my explanation tells you why that happens.
zh_TW: 還記得那個在我們發布之前被專利殺死的程式嗎？嗯，那個演算法也獲得了兩次專利保護。在一個較小的領域中，我們已經看到它在兩種情況下都發生過 —— 相同的算法獲得了兩次專利。嗯，我想我剛剛的解釋告訴了你們為什麼會發生這種情況。

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en: But one or two patents is a lightweight case.  What about MPEG2, the video format? I saw a list of over 70 patents covering that, and the negotiations to arrange a way for somebody to license all those patents took longer than developing the standard itself.  The JPEG committee wanted to develop a follow-on standard, and they gave up.  They said there were too many patents; there was no way to do it.
zh_TW: 但是一項或兩項專利是輕量級的案例。視訊格式 MPEG2 呢？我看到了涵蓋 70 多項專利的清單，而對許可所有這些專利的方式進行的談判，比制定標準本身所需的時間更長。JPEG 委員會想制定一個後續標準，但因此他們放棄了。他們說專利太多了。沒有辦法做到。

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en: Then somebody who had a patent on this feature threatened them, and they concluded that the only thing they could do was to take the feature out.  And so they sent all the users a downgrade.
zh_TW: 而有人對該功能擁有專利，從而威脅了他們，他們得出的結論是，他們唯一可以做的就是移除該功能。因此，他們向所有的使用者寄送了降級後的軟體。

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en: But they also contacted me, because my Emacs editor had a feature like that starting from the late 70s.  And it was described in the Emacs manual, so they thought I might be able to help them invalidate that patent.  Well, I'm happy to know I've had at least one patentable idea in my life, but I'm unhappy that someone else patented it.
zh_TW: 但是他們也聯繫了我，因為我的 Emacs 編輯器從70年代後期就有類似的功能。其在 Emacs 手冊中進行了描述，因此他們認為我或許能夠幫助他們使該專利無效。好吧，我很高興知道自己一生中至少有一個可申請專利的想法，但是我不高興有人為它申請了專利。

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en: Fortunately, in fact, that patent was eventually invalidated, and partly on the strength of the fact that I had published using it earlier.  But in the meantime they had had to remove this feature.
zh_TW: 幸運的是，實際上，該專利最終被無效了，部分原因是我早些時候就已使用它發表了的這個事實。但是與此同時，他們不得不移除此功能。

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en: Now, to remove one or two features may not be a disaster.  But when you have to remove 50 features, you could do it, but people are likely to say, &ldquo;This program's no good; it's missing all the features I want.&rdquo; So it may not be a solution.  And sometimes a patent is so broad that it wipes out an entire field, like the patent on public-key encryption, which in fact put public-key encryption basically off limits for about ten years.
zh_TW: 現在，刪除一兩個功能可能不是災難。但是，當您必須刪除 50 個功能時，您仍然可以這樣做，但是人們可能會說：「這個程式不好，它缺少了我所有想要的功能。」因此，這或許不是好的解決方案。有時候，專利廣泛到消滅了整個領域，例如公開金鑰加密的專利，實際上，這基本上讓公開金鑰加密被限制大約十年。

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en: So that's the option of avoiding the patent&mdash;often possible, but sometimes not, and there's a limit to how many patents you can avoid.
zh_TW: 所以這是避開專利的其中一個選擇 —— 通常是可能的，但有時不是。而且可以避免的專利數量是有限的。

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en: What about the next possibility, of getting a license for the patent?
zh_TW: 那麼獲得專利授權的可能性呢？

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en: Now, I'm sure in the 1980s there was a university that set up a room with a network of workstations, and each workstation had some kind of windowing facility.  All they had to do was to install multiple games and it would be possible to display multiple game sessions at once.  This is so trivial and uninteresting that nobody would have bothered to publish an article about doing it.  No one would have been interested in publishing an article about doing it, but it was worth patenting it.  If it had occurred to you that you could get a monopoly on this trivial thing, then you could shut down your competitors with it.
zh_TW: 現在，我敢肯定，在 1980 年代，有一所大學建立了一個帶有工作站網路的房間，並且每個工作站都有某種類型的視窗工具。他們要做的就是安裝多個遊戲，並且可以一次顯示多個遊戲。這太無聊了，所以應該沒有人會費心去發表有關這麼做的文章。沒有人會對發布有關此操作的文章感興趣，但是值得為其申請專利。如果您發現您可以壟斷這件瑣碎的事情，那麼您就可以用它來關閉競爭對手。

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en: But why does the Patent Office issue so many patents that seem absurd and trivial to us?
zh_TW: 但是為什麼專利局會許可這麼多對我們來說似乎荒謬而微不足道的專利？

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en: It's not because the patent examiners are stupid, it's because they're following a system, and the system has rules, and the rules lead to this result.
zh_TW: 這不是因為專利審查員愚蠢，而是因為他們遵循某個系統，並且該系統具有規則，而規則導致了如此結果。

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en: You see, if somebody has made a machine that does something once, and somebody else designs a machine that will do the same thing, but N times, for us that's a <code>for</code>-loop, but for the Patent Office that's an invention.  If there are machines that can do A, and there are machines that can do B, and somebody designs a machine that can do A or B, for us that's an <code>if-then-else</code> statement, but for the Patent Office that's an invention.  So they have very low standards, and they follow those standards; and the result is patents that look absurd and trivial to us.  Whether they're legally valid I can't say.  But every programmer who sees them laughs.
zh_TW: 你看，如果有人製造的機器執行一次功能，而有人設計的機器執行相同的功能，但是執行 N 次，對我們來說這是一個 <code>for</code> 迴圈，而對專利局來說就是一個發明。如果有可以執行 A 的機器，另外有可以執行 B 的機器，然後有人設計了可以執行 A 或 B 的機器，對我們來說，這是一個 <code>if-then-else</code> 的陳述，而對於專利局來說，這就是一項發明。因此它們的標準很低，並且遵循這些標準。結果是專利對我們來說顯得荒謬而瑣碎。我不能說它們是否合法。但是每個看到它們的程式設計師都笑了。

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en: In any case, I was unable to suggest anything he could do to help himself, and he had to shut down his business.  But most patent holders will offer you a license.  It's likely to be rather expensive.
zh_TW: 無論如何，我都無法建議他可以做些什麼來幫助自己，而他不得不關閉自己的生意。但是大多數專利持有人都會為您提供授權。雖然可能會相當昂貴。

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en: But there are some software developers that find it particularly easy to get licenses, most of the time.  Those are the megacorporations.  In any field the megacorporations generally own about half the patents, and they cross-license each other, and they can make anybody else cross-license if he's really producing anything.  The result is that they end up painlessly with licenses for almost all the patents.
zh_TW: 但是，有些軟體開發者在大多數情況下發現獲得授權特別容易。這些是大型公司。在任何領域，大型公司通常都擁有大約一半的專利，並且它們相互交叉授權，如果他確實在生產任何東西，它們可以讓任何其他人交叉授權。結果是，他們可以輕鬆獲得幾乎所有專利的授權。

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en: IBM wrote an article in its house magazine, <cite>Think</cite> magazine&mdash;I think it's issue 5, 1990&mdash;about the benefit IBM got from its almost 9,000 US patents at the time (now it's up to 45,000 or more).  They said that one of the benefits was that they collected money, but the main benefit, which they said was perhaps an order of magnitude greater, was &ldquo;getting access to the patents of others,&rdquo; namely cross-licensing.
zh_TW: IBM 在其內部雜誌<cite>《Think》</cite>（我認為應該是1990年第 5 期）上寫了一篇文章，內容是有關 IBM 當時從其近 9,000 項美國專利中獲得的收益（現在已達到 45,000 或更多）。他們說，好處之一是他們可以收錢，但是他們說的主要好處也許是更大的，是「獲得他人的專利」，亦即交叉授權。

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en: What this means is since IBM, with so many patents, can make almost everybody give them a cross-license, IBM avoids almost all the grief that the patent system would have inflicted on anybody else.  So that's why IBM wants software patents.  That's why the megacorporations in general want software patents, because they know that by cross-licensing, they will have a sort of exclusive club on top of a mountain peak.  And all the rest of us will be down here, and there's no way we can get up there.  You know, if you're a genius, you might start up a small company and get some patents, but you'll never get into IBM's league, no matter what you do.
zh_TW: 這意味著既然擁有這麼多專利的 IBM，可以使幾乎每個人都給他們交叉授權，因此 IBM 避免了專利制度會給其他人帶來的幾乎所有痛苦。因此，這就是 IBM 想要軟體專利的原因。這就是為什麼大型公司一般都需要軟體專利的原因，因為他們知道透過交叉授權，他們將在層峰上擁有某種專屬俱樂部。我們其他所有人都將在山腳，而且我們找不到方法上去。您知道，如果您是個天才，你可能會創辦一家小公司並獲得一些專利，但是無論你做什麼，你都永遠不會進入 IBM 的行列。

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en: Now a lot of companies tell their employees, &ldquo;Get us patents so we can defend ourselves&rdquo; and they mean, &ldquo;use them to try to get cross-licensing,&rdquo; but it just doesn't work well.  It's not an effective strategy if you've got a small number of patents.
zh_TW: 現在很多公司告訴他們的員工：「給我們專利，這樣我們就可以保護自己。」他們的意思是：「利用它們試圖獲得交叉授權。」但這種做法卻不是十分有效。 如果只你有少量的專利，這不是一個有效的策略。

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en: Suppose you've got three patents.  One points there, one points there, and one points there, and somebody over there points a patent at you.  Well, your three patents don't help you at all, because none of them points at him.  On the other hand, sooner or later, somebody in the company is going to notice that this patent is actually pointing at some people, and [the company] could threaten them and squeeze money out of them&mdash;never mind that those people didn't attack this company.
zh_TW: 假設你有三項專利。這裡一點，那裡一點，另外那裡又有一點，有人在那裡指向你的專利。 嗯，你的三項專利對你沒有任何幫助，因為它們都沒有指向他。 另一方面，公司裡遲早會有人注意到，這項專利實際上是在針對一些人，（公司）可能會威脅他們，從他們身上榨取錢財 —— 儘管這些人並沒有攻擊這家公司。

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en: So if your employer says to you, &ldquo;We need some patents to defend ourselves, so help us get patents,&rdquo; I recommend this response:
zh_TW: 因此，如果你的僱主對您說：「我們需要一些專利來保護自己，所以幫助我們獲得專利。」我建議你做出這樣的回應：

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en: Boss, I trust you and I'm sure you would only use those patents to defend the company if it's attacked.  But I don't know who's going to be the CEO of this company in five years.  For all I know, it might get acquired by Microsoft.  So I really can't trust the company's word to only use these patents for defense unless I get it in writing.  Please put it in writing that any patents I provide for the company will only be used for self-defense and collective security, and not for repression, and then I'll be able to get patents for the company with a clean conscience.
zh_TW: 老闆，我相信你，而且我敢肯定你只會在公司受到攻擊時使用這些專利來保護公司。但我不知道誰會在五年後成為這家公司的首席執行長。就我所知，它可能會被微軟收購。因此，除非我得到它的書面文件，否則我真的不能相信公司說，只使用這些專利進行防禦。請書面聲明，我為公司提供的任何專利將僅用於自衛和集體安全，而不能用於攻擊，然後我將能夠憑清白的良心為公司獲得專利。

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en: It would be most interesting to raise this not just in private with your boss, but also on the company's discussion list.
zh_TW: 最有趣的部份是，不僅與您的老闆私下提出，也在公司的討論清單上提出此議。

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en: The other thing that could happen is that the company could fail and its assets could be auctioned off, including the patents; and the patents will be bought by someone who means to use them to do something nasty.
zh_TW: 另一件可能會發生的事情是，公司可能會倒閉，其資產可能會被拍賣，包括專利；專利將由那些想用它們做一些討厭的事情的人購買。

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en: This cross-licensing practice is very important to understand, because this is what punctures the argument of the software patent advocates who say that software patents are needed to protect the starving genius.  They give you a scenario which is a series of unlikelihoods.
zh_TW: 理解這種交叉授權的作法非常重要，因為這足以戳破軟體專利擁護者的論點，他們說，保護飢餓的天才需要軟體專利。他們讓你看見了一系列不可能的情況。

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en: Well, let's look at all the unlikely assumptions here.
zh_TW: 好吧，讓我們看看這裡所有不太可能的假設。

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en: First of all, that he comes up with this idea working by himself.  That's not very likely.  In a high-tech field, most progress is made by people working in a field, doing things and talking with people in the field.  But I wouldn't say it's impossible, not that one thing by itself.
zh_TW: 首先，他自己想出了這個主意。這不太可能。在高科技領域，大多數進步是由在該領域工作，從事作業且與該領域的人們交流的人完成的。但是我不會說這是不可能的，而且這個可能性並不重要。

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en: But anyway the next supposition is that he's going to start a business and that it's going to succeed.  Well, just because he's a brilliant engineer doesn't mean that he's any good at running a business.  Most new businesses fail; more than 95 percent of them, I think, fail within a few years.  So that's probably what's going to happen to him, no matter what.
zh_TW: 但是無論如何，下一個假設是他將要創業，並且將會成功。好吧，他是一位出色的工程師並不代表他擅長經營業務。大多數的新創公司都很快就會倒閉；我認為，其中超過 95％ 的公司會在幾年內失敗。所以這可能是他將會發生的事情，無論如何。

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en: Ok, let's assume that in addition to being a brilliant engineer who came up with something great by himself, he's also talented at running businesses.  If he has a knack for running businesses, then maybe his business won't fail.  After all, not all new businesses fail, there are a certain few that succeed.  Well, if he understands business, then instead of trying to go head to head with large companies, he might try to do things that small companies are better at and have a better chance of succeeding.  He might succeed.  But let's suppose it fails anyway.  If he's so brilliant and has a knack for running businesses, I'm sure he won't starve, because somebody will want to give him a job.
zh_TW: 好的，讓我們假設除了是一位出色的工程師，自己想出了一個偉大的想法，他還具有經營業務的才能。如果他有經營生意的訣竅，那麼也許他的生意不會失敗。畢竟，並非所有新業務都會失敗，仍有少數幾項成功。好吧，如果他了解業務，那麼他可能不會嘗試與大型公司並駕齊驅，而是會嘗試做一些小型公司擅長的事情，並且更有機會獲得成功。他可能會成功。但是讓我們假設它還是失敗了。如果他如此才華橫溢，並且有經營業務的訣竅，我相信他不會餓死，因為有人會想要給他一份工作。

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en: So a series of unlikelihoods&mdash;it's not a very plausible scenario.  But let's look at it anyway.
zh_TW: 因此，出現了一系列不太可能的情況 —— 這不是一個很合理的情況。但是不管怎樣，還是讓我們看看它。

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en: Because where they go from there is to say the patent system will &ldquo;protect&rdquo; our starving genius, because he can get a patent on this technique.  And then when IBM wants to compete with him, he says, &ldquo;IBM, you can't compete with me, because I've got this patent,&rdquo; and IBM says, &ldquo;Oh, no, not again!&rdquo;
zh_TW: 因為他們可以說專利制度將「保護」我們挨餓的天才，因為他可以獲得這項技術的專利。然後，當 IBM 想與他競爭時，他說：「 IBM，你不能跟我競爭，因為我已經獲得了這項專利。」而 IBM 說，「哦，不，又來了！」

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en: Well, here's what really happens.
zh_TW: 好吧，讓我們來看看真實情況。

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en: IBM says, &ldquo;Oh, how nice, you have a patent.  Well, we have this patent, and this patent, and this patent, and this patent, and this patent, all of which cover other ideas implemented in your product, and if you think you can fight us on all those, we'll pull out some more.  So let's sign a cross-license agreement, and that way nobody will get hurt.&rdquo; Now since we've assumed that our genius understands business, he's going to realize that he has no choice.  He's going to sign the cross-license agreement, as just about everybody does when IBM demands it.  And then this means that IBM will get &ldquo;access&rdquo; to his patent, meaning IBM would be free to compete with him just as if there were no patents, which means that the supposed benefit that they claim he would get by having this patent is not real.  He won't get this benefit.
zh_TW: IBM 說：「哦，您的專利真是太好了。好吧，我們擁有這個專利，那個專利，那個專利，這個專利和那個專利，所有這些都涵蓋了您的產品中實作的其他想法，如果您認為可以在所有這些方面與我們抗爭，我們會再多拿一些出來。因此，讓我們簽署交叉授權協議，這樣就不會有人受到傷害。」現在，既然我們假設我們的天才能夠理解業務，那麼他將意識到自己別無選擇。他將簽署交叉授權協議，就像每個人受 IBM 要求時一樣。然後，這意味著 IBM 可以「取得」他的專利，這意味著 IBM 可以自由地與他競爭，就好像沒有專利一樣，這意味著他們聲稱擁有此專利將獲得的假定利益不是真的。他不會得到這種好處。

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en: The patent might &ldquo;protect&rdquo; him from competition from you or me, but not from IBM&mdash;not from the very megacorporations which the scenario says are the threat to him.  You know in advance that there's got to be a flaw in this reasoning when people who are lobbyists for megacorporations recommend a policy supposedly because it's going to protect their small competitors from them.  If it really were going to do that, they wouldn't be in favor of it.  But this explains why [software patents] won't do it.
zh_TW: 該專利可能會「保護」他免受你或我的競爭，但不能免受來自 IBM 的競爭 —— 不受該情景所稱對他構成威脅的大型公司的競爭。您已經事先知道，當大型公司的遊說者推薦一項政策時，這種推理肯定有缺陷，因為這將保護他們的小競爭對手免受其害。如果真的要這麼做，他們將不會贊成。但這解釋了為什麼（軟體專利）無法做到這一點。

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en: Even IBM can't always do this, because there are companies that we refer to as patent trolls or patent parasites, and their only business is using patents to squeeze money out of people who really make something.
zh_TW: 甚至 IBM 也不總是能夠做到這一點，因為有些公司被我們稱為專利流氓或專利寄生蟲，而他們唯一的業務就是利用專利從真正賺錢的人中榨取錢財。

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en: Patent lawyers tell us that it's really wonderful to have patents in your field, but they don't have patents in their field.  There are no patents on how to send or write a threatening letter, no patents on how to file a lawsuit, and no patents on how to persuade a judge or jury, so even IBM can't make the patent trolls cross-license.  But IBM figures, &ldquo;Our competition will have to pay them too; this is just part of the cost of doing business, and we can live with it.&rdquo; IBM and the other megacorporations figure that the general dominion over all activity that they get from their patents is good for them, and paying off the trolls they can live with.  So that's why they want software patents.
zh_TW: 專利律師告訴我們，在你的領域擁有專利確實很棒，但是他們在他們的領域沒有專利。沒有關於如何發送或寫威脅信的專利，也沒有關於如何提起訴訟的專利，也沒有關於如何說服法官或陪審團的專利，因此即使 IBM 也無法使專利流氓獲得交叉許可。但是 IBM 認為：「我們的競爭也必須付出代價；這只是業務成本的一部分，我們可以忍受。」IBM 和其他大型公司認為，他們從專利中獲得的所有活動的總體統治權對他們都是有益的，並支付給他們可以忍受的流氓。因此，這就是他們想要軟體專利的原因。

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en: There are also certain software developers who find it particularly difficult to get a patent license, and those are the developers of free software.  The reason is that the usual patent license has conditions we can't possibly fulfill, because usual patent licenses demand a payment per copy.  But when software gives users the freedom to distribute and make more copies, we have no way to count the copies that exist.
zh_TW: 也有某些軟體開發者發現獲得專利授權特別困難，他們就是自由軟體的開發者。原因是一般專利授權有我們可能無法滿足的條件，因為一般專利授權要求按副本付費。但是，當軟體為使用者提供散佈與製作更多副本的自由時，我們就無法計算存在的副本。

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en: If someone offered me a patent license for a payment of one-millionth of a dollar per copy, the total amount of money I'd have to pay maybe is in my pocket now.  Maybe it's 50 dollars, but I don't know if it's 50 dollars, or 49, or what, because there's no way I can count the copies that people have made.
zh_TW: 如果有人向我提供了一份專利授權，以每份副本支付百萬分之一美元的費用，那麼我現在所要支付的總金額可能就在我的口袋裡。也許是 50 美元，但我不知道是 50 美元還是 49 美元，或者其他的金額，因為我無法計算別人製作的副本。

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en: A patent holder doesn't have to demand a payment per copy; a patent holder could offer you a license for a single lump sum, but those lump sums tend to be big, like US$100,000.
zh_TW: 專利持有人不必要求為每份副本付款；專利持有人可以為您提供一次性付款的授權，但這些一次性款項往往很大，例如 100,000 美元。

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en: And the reason that we've been able to develop so much freedom-respecting software is [that] we can develop software without money, but we can't pay a lot of money without money.  If we're forced to pay for the privilege of writing software for the public, we won't be able to do it very much.
zh_TW: 我們之所以能夠開發出如此多尊重自由的軟體，是因為我們可以不用錢就能開發軟體，但是如果沒有錢，我們就不能付出很多錢。如果我們被迫為公眾編寫軟體的特權付出代價，那麼我們將無法做到這一點。

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en: That's the possibility of getting a license for the patent.  The other possibility is to invalidate the patent.  If the country considers software patents to be basically valid, and allowed, the only question is whether that particular patent meets the criteria.  It's only useful to go to court if you've got an argument to make that might prevail.
zh_TW: 這就是獲得專利授權的可能性。另一種可能性是讓專利無效。如果該國認為該軟體專利是基本、有效且被允許的，則唯一的問題是該特定專利是否符合標準。只有當您有可能佔上風的論點時，上法庭才有用。

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en: What would that argument be? You have to find evidence that, years ago, before the patent was applied for, people knew about the same idea.  And you'd have to find things today that demonstrate that they knew about it publicly at that time.  So the dice were cast years ago, and if they came up favorably for you, and if you can prove that fact today, then you have an argument to use to try to invalidate the patent.  And it might work.
zh_TW: 該論點是什麼？您必須找到證據證明，幾年前，在申請專利之前，人們都已知道相同的想法。而且，您今天必須找到可以證明他們當時公開知道這一點的東西。因此，幾年前發生的已經成定局了，如果它們對您有利，並且如果您今天可以證明這一事實，那麼您就有理由要嘗試使專利無效。它可能會起作用。

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en: It might cost you a lot of money to go through this case, and as a result, a probably invalid patent is a very frightening weapon to be threatened with if you don't have a lot of money.  There are people who can't afford to defend their rights&mdash;lots of them.  The ones who can afford it are the exception.
zh_TW: 審理此案可能會花費您很多錢，結果，如果您沒有很多錢，那麼可能無效的專利是一種非常令人恐懼的武器。有些人負擔不起捍衛自己權利的權利——大部分人。負擔得起的人是例外。

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en: These are the three things that you might be able to do about each patent that prohibits something in your program.  The thing is, whether each one is possible depends on different details of the circumstances, so some of the time, none of them is possible; and when that happens, your project is dead.
zh_TW: 這是您可以對禁止程式中某些內容的每項專利進行的三件事。問題是，是否每個都有可能則取決於實際情況的不同細節，所以有些時候，三者都不可能。當這種情況發生時，您的專案就死了。

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en: And of course, with each single design decision, you probably don't step on a patent.  Probably nothing happens to you.  But there are so many steps you have to take to get across the minefield, it's very unlikely you will get through safely.  And of course, the patent holders don't all show up at the same time, so you don't know how many there are going to be.
zh_TW: 當然，每個設計決策也都可能與專利無關。也許什麼都不會發生。但是要穿越雷區需要採取許多步驟，因此您很難安全通過。當然，專利持有者不會同時出現，因此您不知道會有多少人。

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en: The patent holder of the natural order recalculation patent was demanding 5 percent of the gross sales of every spreadsheet.  You could imagine paying for a few such licenses, but what happens when patent holder number 20 comes along, and wants you to pay out the last remaining 5 percent? And then what happens when patent holder number 21 comes along?
zh_TW: 自然排序重新計算專利的專利持有者要求每個試算表的總銷售額的 5％。您可以想像要為如此的授權付費，但是當第 20 號專利持有人出現並希望您支付最後剩餘的 5％ 時怎麼辦呢？然後，當第 21 位專利持有人出現時怎麼辦呢？

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en: People in business say that this scenario is amusing but absurd, because your business would fail long before you got there.  They told me that two or three such licenses would make your business fail.  So you'd never get to 20.  They show up one by one, so you never know how many more there are going to be.
zh_TW: 業界人士說，這種情況很有趣，但很荒謬，因為您的公司很可能在您到這種程度之前就倒閉了。他們告訴我，兩三個這樣的授權就會使您的公司倒閉。因此永遠都不會達到 20 個。它們會一個接一個地出現，所以您永遠不會知道還會有多少。

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en: Software patents are a mess.  They're a mess for software developers, but in addition they're a restriction on every computer user because software patents restrict what you can do on your computer.
zh_TW: 軟體專利一團糟。它們對軟體開發人員來說是一團糟，但除此之外，它們也限制了每台電腦使用者，因為軟體專利限制了您可以在電腦上執行的動作。

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en: This is very different from patents, for instance, on automobile engines.  These only restrict companies that make cars; they don't restrict you and me.  But software patents do restrict you and me, and everybody who uses computers.  So we can't think of them in purely economic terms; we can't judge this issue purely in economic terms.  There's something more important at stake.
zh_TW: 這與像是汽車引擎之類的專利有很大不同。這些僅限制製造汽車的公司，並不會限制您與我。但是軟體專利確實限制了您與我，還有使用電腦的每個人。因此，我們不能只從經濟角度來考慮它們。我們不能僅僅從經濟角度判斷這個問題。還有一些更重要的事情迫在眉睫。

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en: But even in economic terms, the system is self-defeating, because its purpose is supposed to be to promote progress.  Supposedly by creating this artificial incentive for people to publish ideas, it's going to help the field progress.  But all it does is the exact opposite, because the big job in software is not coming up with ideas, it's implementing thousands of ideas together in one program.  And software patents obstruct that, so they're economically self-defeating.
zh_TW: 但即使從經濟角度來講，這個系統也是註定會失敗的，因為它的目的應該是促進進步。據說，透過創造一種人為激勵人們發表想法的動機，它將有助於該領域的發展。但是它所做的卻是完全相反的，因為軟體的主要任務不是提出構想，而是在一個程式中一起實現數千個構想。軟體專利阻礙了這一點，因此它們在經濟上是適得其反的。

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en: And there's even economic research showing that this is so&mdash;showing how in a field with a lot of incremental innovation, a patent system can actually reduce investment in R &amp; D.  And of course, it also obstructs development in other ways.  So even if we ignore the injustice of software patents, even if we were to look at it in the narrow economic terms that are usually proposed, it's still harmful.
zh_TW: 甚至有經濟研究表明這是事實 —— 專利制度是如何在具有大量創新的領域中，實際上減少研發投資的。當然，它還會阻礙其他方面的發展。因此，即使我們無視軟體專利的不公正，即使我們通常以狹義的經濟學術語來研究它，它也仍然是有害的。

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en: People sometimes respond by saying that &ldquo;People in other fields have been living with patents for decades, and they've gotten used to it, so why should you be an exception?&rdquo;
zh_TW: 人們有時會說：「其他領域的人們已經與專利為伍幾十年了，他們已經習慣了，那你為什麼要例外呢？」

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en: Now, that question has an absurd assumption.  It's like saying, &ldquo;Other people get cancer, why shouldn't you?&rdquo; I think every time someone doesn't get cancer, that's good, regardless of what happened to the others.  That question is absurd because of its presupposition that somehow we all have a duty to suffer the harm done by patents.
zh_TW: 現在，這個問題有一個荒謬的假設。 這就像說：「其他人得了癌症，你為什麼不呢？」不管別人發生了什麼事，我想任何時候任何人沒有得癌症，都是很好的。這個問題是很荒謬的，因為它的前提是，我們都有責任以某種方式承受專利所造成的傷害。

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en: But there is a sensible question buried inside it, and that sensible question is &ldquo;What differences are there between various fields that might affect what is good or bad patent policy in those fields?&rdquo;
zh_TW: 但其中仍有一個值得深思的問題，這個問題是：「不同領域之間有什麼區別，可能會影響這些領域的專利政策好壞？」

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en: There is an important basic difference between fields in regard to how many patents are likely to prohibit or cover parts of any one product.
zh_TW: 在多少專利能夠禁止或覆蓋任何一種產品的各部分，各個領域之間存在重要的差異。

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en: Now we have a naive idea in our minds which I'm trying to get rid of, because it's not true.  And it's that on any one product there is one patent, and that patent covers the overall design of that product.  So if you design a new product, it can't be patented already, and you will have an opportunity to get &ldquo;the patent&rdquo; on that product.
zh_TW: 現在我們試圖擺脫的是一個天真的想法，因為它不是真實情況。亦即在任何一種產品上都有一項專利，能涵蓋該產品的整體設計。因此，如果您設計一個新產品，而該產品尚未獲得專利，因此您將有機會獲得該產品的「專利」。

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en: That's not how things work.  In the 1800s, maybe they did, but not now.  In fact, fields fall on a spectrum of how many patents [there are] per product.  The beginning of the spectrum is one, but no field is like that today; fields are at various places on this spectrum.
zh_TW: 事實不是這樣的。在1800年代，他們或許做得到，但現在可不行。事實上，每個產品領域涉及多少專利，不同領域的一個產品有多少專利會形成一個光譜。光譜的起點是一個專利，但今天沒有這樣的領域。各個領域都在這個光譜上的不同地方。

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en: The field that's closest to that is pharmaceuticals.  A few decades ago, there really was one patent per pharmaceutical, at least at any time, because the patent covered the entire chemical formula of that one particular substance.  Back then, if you developed a new drug, you could be sure it wasn't already patented by somebody else and you could get the one patent on that drug.
zh_TW: 與之最接近的領域是製藥。幾十年前，至少在某個時候，每種藥物實際上都擁有一項專利，因為該專利涵蓋了該特定物質的整個化學式。那時，如果您開發了一種新藥，則可以確定它尚未被其他人申請專利，並且可以獲得該藥的一項專利。

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en: But that's not how it works now.  Now there are broader patents, so now you could develop a new drug, and you're not allowed to make it because somebody has a broader patent which covers it already.
zh_TW: 但現在這行不通。現在有更廣泛的專利，因此現在您可以開發一種新藥，而且由於某人已經擁有涵蓋該專利的更廣泛專利，因此您不被允許製造您所研發的新藥。

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en: And there might even be a few such patents covering your new drug simultaneously, but there won't be hundreds.  The reason is, our ability to do biochemical engineering is so limited that nobody knows how to combine so many ideas to make something that's useful in medicine.  If you can combine a couple of them you're doing pretty well at our level of knowledge.  But other fields involve combining more ideas to make one thing.
zh_TW: 甚至可能有幾個這樣的專利同時涵蓋您的新藥，但不會有數百個。原因是，我們進行生化工程的能力非常有限，導致沒人知道如何結合這麼多想法來製造出對醫學有用的東西。如果您可以將其中的幾個結合使用，那麼就我們的知識水準而言，您做得很好。但是其他領域則涉及將更多的想法組合成一件事。

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en: At the other end of the spectrum is software, where we can combine more ideas into one usable design than anybody else, because our field is basically easier than all other fields.  I'm presuming that the intelligence of people in our field is the same as that of people in physical engineering.  It's not that we're fundamentally better than they are; it's that our field is fundamentally easier, because we're working with mathematics.
zh_TW: 在光譜的另一端是軟體，因為我們的領域，比所有其他領域都容易將更多的想法組合成一個可用的設計。我認為我們領域中的人的智力與物理工程中的人的智力相同。並不是說我們本質上比他們更強。這是因為我們在從事數學工作，因此從根本上來說，我們的領域更加簡單。

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en: A program is made out of mathematical components, which have a definition, whereas physical objects don't have a definition.  The matter does what it does, so through the perversity of matter, your design may not work the way it &ldquo;should&rdquo; have worked.  And that's just tough.  You can't say that the matter has a bug in it, and the physical universe should get fixed.  [Whereas] we [programmers] can make a castle that rests on a mathematically thin line, and it stays up because nothing weighs anything.
zh_TW: 程式由具有定義的數學元件組成，是有定義的，而物理物件沒有定義。物質自有其運作方式，因此，透過物質的變化，您的設計可能無法按其「應有的」運作方式進行。這很難。您不能說這件事有問題，而宇宙應該被修復。（而）我們（程式設計師）可以製造一座位於數學的細線上的城堡，並且由於沒有任何實際的重量，所以它可以保持不動。

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en: There're so many complications you have to cope with in physical engineering that we don't have to worry about.
zh_TW: 我們不必擔心物理工程中許多複雜的事情。

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en: For instance, when I put an <code>if</code>-statement inside of a <code>while</code>-loop,
zh_TW: 例如，當我將 <code>if</code> 陳述放入 <code>while</code> 迴圈內時：

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en: I don't have to worry that if this <code>while</code>-loop repeats at the wrong rate, the <code>if</code>-statement might start to vibrate and it might resonate and crack;
zh_TW: 我不必擔心，如果這種 <code>while</code> 迴圈以錯誤的速率重複，<code>if</code> 陳述可能開始振動，並且可能引起共振與破裂；

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en: I don't have to worry that if it resonates much faster&mdash;you know, millions of times per second&mdash;that it might generate radio frequency signals that might induce wrong values in other parts of the program;
zh_TW: 我不必擔心，如果它能以更快的速度共振（也許是每秒數百萬次）它可能會產生無線電波訊號，從而可能在程式的其他部分產生錯誤的數值；

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en: I don't have to worry that corrosive fluids from the environment might seep in between the <code>if</code>-statement and the <code>while</code>-statement and start eating away at them until the signals don't pass anymore;
zh_TW: 我不必擔心環境中的腐蝕性流體可能會滲入 <code>if</code> 陳述與 <code>while</code> 陳述之間，並開始吞噬它們，導致訊號不再通過；

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en: I don't have to worry about how the heat generated by my <code>if</code>-statement is going to get out through the <code>while</code>-statement so that it doesn't make the <code>if</code>-statement burn out; and
zh_TW: 我不必擔心 <code>if</code> 陳述產生的熱量如何透過 <code>while</code> 陳述散發出去，從而不會使 <code>if</code> 陳述能量耗盡；以及

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en: I don't have to worry about how I would take out the broken <code>if</code>-statement if it does crack, burn, or corrode, and replace it with another <code>if</code>-statement to make the program run again.
zh_TW: 我不必擔心如果其破裂、燃燒或腐蝕，我要如何取出損毀的 <code>if</code> 陳述，並用另一個 <code>if</code> 陳述替換以讓程式再度執行。

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en: For that matter, I don't have to worry about how I'm going to insert the <code>if</code>-statement inside the <code>while</code>-statement every time I produce a copy of the program.  I don't have to design a factory to make copies of my program, because there are various general commands that will make copies of anything.
zh_TW: 對於這個問題，每次我製作程式副本時，我不必擔心如何將 <code>if</code> 陳述放入 <code>while</code> 中。我不需要設計一個工廠來複製我的程式，因為有各種一般的指令能夠複製任何東西。

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en: If I want to make copies on CD, I just have to write a master; and there's one program I can [use to] make a master out of anything, write any data I want.  I can make a master CD and write it and send it off to a factory, and they'll duplicate whatever I send them.  I don't have to design a different factory for each thing I want to duplicate.
zh_TW: 如果我想在 CD 上製作一份副本，我只需要編寫一份母片；而且有程式可以（用來）從任何東西中製作母片，寫入我想要的任何資料。我可以製作一份母片 CD，將我的程式寫入，並將其寄送給工廠，然後他們就會複製我給他們的任何內容。我不必為了我想複製的每樣東西設計不同的工廠。

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en: Very often with physical engineering you have to do that; you have to design products for manufacturability.  Designing the factory may even be a bigger job than designing the product, and then you may have to spend millions of dollars to build the factory.  So with all of this trouble, you're not going to be able to put together so many different ideas in one product and have it work.
zh_TW: 在物理工程中，很多時候您必須這樣做：您必須設計有可製造性的產品。設計工廠甚至可能比設計產品更重要，然後您可能需要花費數百萬美元來建造工廠。 因此，面對這些所有麻煩，您將無法將這麼多不同的想法放在一個產品中，並讓它發揮作用。

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en: A physical design with a million nonrepeating different design elements is a gigantic project.  A program with a million different design elements, that's nothing.  It's a few hundred thousand lines of code, and a few people will write that in a few years, so it's not a big deal.  So the result is that the patent system weighs proportionately heavier on us than it does on people in any other field who are being held back by the perversity of matter.
zh_TW: 具有一百萬個不重複不同設計元素的物理設計是一個巨大的專案。但若是一個包含一百萬種不同設計元素的程式不算什麼。這只是幾十萬行程式碼，幾個人在幾年後就能寫出來，所以沒什麼大不了的。因此，結果導致專利制度對我們的影響比任何其他領域的人都重，這些人則是受到物質上的阻礙。

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en: A lawyer did a study of one particular large program, namely the kernel Linux, which is used together with the GNU operating system that I launched.  This was five years ago now; he found 283 different US patents, each of which appeared to prohibit some computation done somewhere in the code of Linux.  At the time I saw an article saying that Linux was 0.25 percent of the whole system.  So by multiplying 300 by 400 we can estimate the number of patents that would prohibit something in the whole system as being around 100,000.  This is a very rough estimate only, and no more accurate information is available, since trying to figure it out would be a gigantic task.
zh_TW: 一位律師對一個特定的大型程式進行了研究，亦即 Linux 核心，它與我推出的 GNU 作業系統一起使用。距今五年前；他發現了 283 項不同的美國專利，每項專利似乎都在某些地方禁止 Linux 程式碼進行某些運算。當時我看到一篇文章說 Linux 占整個系統的 0.25%。因此，透過計算將 300 乘以 400，我們可以估計專利的數量，整個系統將禁止的東西大約會有 10 萬項。這只是一個非常粗略的估計，沒有更準確的資訊可用，因為試圖找出答會將是艱鉅的任務。

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en: Now this lawyer did not publish the list of patents, because that would have endangered the developers of Linux the kernel, putting them in a position where the penalties if they were sued would be greater.  He didn't want to hurt them; he wanted to demonstrate how bad this problem is, of patent gridlock.
zh_TW: 現在，這位律師沒有公佈專利清單，因為這將危及 Linux 核心的開發者，讓他們處於如果被起訴將受到更嚴重懲罰的境地。他不想傷害他們；他想證明這個專利僵局的問題有多嚴重。

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en: Programmers can understand this immediately, but politicians usually don't know much about programming; they usually imagine that patents are basically much like copyrights, only somehow stronger.  They imagine that since software developers are not endangered by the copyrights on their work, that they won't be endangered by the patents on their work either.  They imagine that, since when you write a program you have the copyright, [therefore likewise] if you write a program you have the patents also.  This is false&mdash;so how do we give them a clue what patents would really do? What they really do in countries like the US?
zh_TW: 程式設計師可以立刻理解這一點，但政治人物通常對程式設計所知甚少；他們通常認為專利基本上很像著作權，只是在某種程度上更強大。他們想像，既然軟體開發者不會受到作品著作權的危害，他們也不會受到作品專利的危害。他們想像，因為當你寫出一個程式，你有著作權，（因此）如果你寫了一個程式，你也會擁有專利。這是錯誤的 —— 那麼，我們如何讓他們知道專利到底會做什麼呢？他們在像美國這樣的國家真正想做什麼？

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en: I find it's useful to make an analogy between software and symphonies.  Here's why it's a good analogy.
zh_TW: 我發現以交響樂來做軟體的類比很有用。這裡有一個不錯的類比。

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en: A program or symphony combines many ideas.  A symphony combines many musical ideas.  But you can't just pick a bunch of ideas and say &ldquo;Here's my combination of ideas, do you like it?&rdquo; Because in order to make them work you have to implement them all.  You can't just pick musical ideas and list them and say, &ldquo;Hey, how do you like this combination?&rdquo; You can't hear that [list].  You have to write notes which implement all these ideas together.
zh_TW: 一個程式或交響樂結合了許多想法。交響樂融合了許多音樂想法。但是您不能只挑出一堆想法說：「這是我的想法組合，您喜歡嗎？」因為為了讓它們起作用，您必須全部都實現。你不能只挑選一些音樂思想並列出它們，然後說：「嘿，你喜歡這個組合嗎？」您聽不到那個（清單）。 您必須寫樂譜，將這些想法結合並實現。

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en: The hard task, the thing most of us wouldn't be any good at, is writing all these notes to make the whole thing sound good.  Sure, lots of us could pick musical ideas out of a list, but we wouldn't know how to write a good-sounding symphony to implement those ideas.  Only some of us have that talent.  That's the thing that limits you.  I could probably invent a few musical ideas, but I wouldn't know how to use them to any effect.
zh_TW: 其中艱鉅的任務，我們大多數人不擅長的事情，是編寫所有的樂譜，讓整體聽起來不錯。當然，我們很多人可以從清單中挑選出音樂想法，但我們不知道如何寫好聽的交響樂來實現這些想法。只有我們中的一些人有這種天賦。這是限制你的東西。我也許可以發明一些音樂創意，但我不知道如何使用它們。

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en: So imagine that it's the 1700s, and the governments of Europe decide that they want to promote the progress of symphonic music by establishing a system of musical idea patents, so that any musical idea described in words could be patented.
zh_TW: 試想一下，如果現在是1700年代，歐洲各國政府決定透過建立一個音樂理念專利制度來促進交響樂的進步，以便任何用語言描述的音樂想法都能獲得專利。

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en: For instance, using a particular sequence of notes as a motif could be patented, or a chord progression could be patented, or a rhythmic pattern could be patented, or using certain instruments by themselves could be patented, or a format of repetitions in a movement could be patented.  Any sort of musical idea that could be described in words would have been patentable.
zh_TW: 例如，使用特定的音符順序作為主題可以申請專利，或是和弦進行可以申請專利，或是有節奏的模式可以申請專利，或是使用某些樂器本身可以申請專利，或者可以在行動中重複的格式可以申請專利。任何可以用語言描述的音樂想法都是可以申請專利的。

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en: Now imagine that it's 1800 and you're Beethoven, and you want to write a symphony.  You're going to find it's much harder to write a symphony you don't get sued for than to write one that sounds good, because you have to thread your way around all the patents that exist.  If you complained about this, the patent holders would say, &ldquo;Oh, Beethoven, you're just jealous because we had these ideas first.  Why don't you go and think of some ideas of your own?&rdquo;
zh_TW: 然後想像一下，現在是1800年，你是貝多芬，你想寫交響樂。你會發現寫一首你不會被起訴的交響樂比寫一首聽起來不錯的交響樂要困難得多，因為你必須繞開所有存在的專利。如果你抱怨這一點，專利持有人會說：「哦，貝多芬，你只是嫉妒，因為我們先有這些想法。你為什麼不去想一些你自己的想法呢？」

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en: Now Beethoven had ideas of his own.  The reason he's considered a great composer is because of all of the new ideas that he had, and he actually used.  And he knew how to use them in such a way that they would work, which was to combine them with lots of well-known ideas.  He could put a few new ideas into a composition together with a lot of old and uncontroversial ideas.  And the result was a piece that was controversial, but not so much so that people couldn't get used to it.
zh_TW: 那現在貝多芬有自己的想法。他之所以被認為是一位偉大的作曲家，是因為他擁有的所有新想法，而且他實際上也使用了。他知道如何使用它們使之能實現，就是將他們與許多眾所周知的想法結合。他可以把一些新的想法與許多老的與沒有爭議的想法一起譜成一曲。結果卻是一部有爭議的作品，但並非讓人們無法接受它。

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en: To us, Beethoven's music doesn't sound controversial; I'm told it was, when it was new.  But because he combined his new ideas with a lot of known ideas, he was able to give people a chance to stretch a certain amount.  And they could, which is why to us those ideas sound just fine.  But nobody, not even a Beethoven, is such a genius that he could reinvent music from zero, not using any of the well-known ideas, and make something that people would want to listen to.  And nobody is such a genius he could reinvent computing from zero, not using any of the well-known ideas, and make something that people want to use.
zh_TW: 對我們來說，貝多芬的音樂聽起來沒有爭議；當它是新的時候，有人這樣告訴我。但是，由於他把他的新想法與許多已知的想法結合起來，他能讓人們有機會在一定的程度上擴展。而人們確實可以，這就是為什麼這些想法聽起來很好。但是，沒有人，即使是貝多芬，是一個可以從零重塑音樂的天才，不使用任何眾所周知的想法，並作出人們會想聽的東西。同樣沒有人是可以從零重塑運算的天才，不使用任何眾所周知的想法，並產生人們會想要使用的東西。

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en: When the technological context changes so frequently, you end up with a situation where what was done 20 years ago is totally inadequate.  Twenty years ago there was no World Wide Web.  So, sure, people did a lot of things with computers back then, but what they want to do today are things that work with the World Wide Web.  And you can't do that using only the ideas that were known 20 years ago.  And I presume that the technological context will continue to change, creating fresh opportunities for somebody to get patents that give the shaft to the whole field.
zh_TW: 當技術環境如此頻繁地變化時，您最終會遇到二十年前所做的事情完全不夠的狀況。二十年前沒有全球資訊網。所以，當然，當時人們用電腦做了很多事情，但是他們今天想做的事情是能與全球資訊網一起使用的事情。你不能只使用二十年前已知的想法。而我相信技術環境將繼續改變，為某人獲得新的創造專利機會，為整個領域提供動力。

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en: Big companies can even do this themselves.  For instance, a few years ago Microsoft decided to make a phony open standard for documents and to get it approved as a standard by corrupting the International Standards Organization, which they did.  But they designed it using something that Microsoft had patented.  Microsoft is big enough that it can start with a patent, design a format or protocol to use that patented idea (whether it's helpful or not), in such a way that there's no way to be compatible unless you use that same idea too.  And then Microsoft can make that a de facto standard with or without help from corrupted standards bodies.  Just by its weight it can push people into using that format, and that basically means that they get a stranglehold over the whole world.  So we need to show the politicians what's really going on here.  We need to show them why this is bad.
zh_TW: 大公司甚至可以自己做這件事。例如，幾年前，微軟決定對文件制定一個虛假的公開標準，並透過破壞國際標準組織來將其作為標準獲得批准。但是他們使用微軟已經申請專利的東西來設計它。微軟夠大，它可以從專利開始，設計一種格式或協定來使用專利的想法（無論其是否有助益），如此，除非你也使用同樣的想法，否則沒有辦法相容。然後微軟可以在有或沒有被破壞的標準機構幫助的情況下制定出事實上的標準。僅僅以其市占率，它可以推動人們使用這種格式，這基本上意味著他們得到對整個世界的箝制。因此，我們需要向政治家們展示這裡到底發生了什麼。我們需要告訴他們為什麼這是不好的。

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en: Now I've heard it said that the reason New Zealand is considering software patents is that one large company wants to be given some monopolies.  To restrict everyone in the country so that one company will make more money is the absolute opposite of statesmanship.
zh_TW: 現在我聽說紐西蘭考慮軟體專利的原因是，一家大公司希望獲得一些壟斷，限制國內的每個人，讓一家公司賺更多的錢。這與政治家精神完全相反。

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en: So, at this point, I'd like to ask for questions.
zh_TW: 所以，在這一點上，我想問幾個問題。

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en: Q.
zh_TW: 問：

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en: What is the alternative?
zh_TW: 還有別的替代方案嗎？

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en: A.
zh_TW: 答：

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en: No software patents.  I know that that works fine.  I was in the field when there were no software patents.  And that meant people developed software, and they distributed that software in various ways, and they didn't have to worry about getting sued by patent holders for doing it, so they were safe.  Software patents don't solve a real problem, so we don't need to ask what other solution is there.
zh_TW: 不要有軟體專利。我知道這樣仍能運作良好。我在這個領域時還沒有軟體專利。這代表了人們開發軟體，並以各種方式散佈軟體，而不必擔心被專利持有人起訴，所以他們是安全的。軟體專利無法解決真正的問題，所以我們不需要問還有什麼其他解決方案。

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en: How do the developers get rewarded?
zh_TW: 開發者如何獲得獎勵？

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en: Many ways.  Software patents have nothing to do with that.  Remember if you're a software developer, software patents don't help you get whatever you want to get.
zh_TW: 有很多方法。但軟體專利與此無關。請記住，如果您是軟體開發者，軟體專利無法協助您取得任何您想要取得的東西。

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en: Different software developers want different things.  I developed some important software in the 1980s, and the reward I wanted was to see people using computers in freedom.  And I got that reward, although not totally, not everybody has freedom.  But software patents would only have stopped me.
zh_TW: 不同的軟體開發者想要不同的東西。 我在1980年代開發了一些重要的軟體，我想要的回報是看到人們在自由地使用電腦。而我得到了這個回報，雖然不夠完整，不是每個人都有自由。但是軟體專利只會阻止我的目標。

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en: Other people developed programs because they wanted money.  Software patents threaten them, too, and still threaten them, because you're not going to make any money if patent holders demand that you give it all to them, or if they make you shut down.
zh_TW: 其他人開發程式是因為他們想要錢。軟體專利同樣威脅著他們，並且仍然威脅著他們，因為如果專利持有人要求你全部交給他們，或者如果他們要你關門，你就賺不到錢。

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en: How do you prevent plagiarism and still&hellip;
zh_TW: 您如何避免抄襲，以及……

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en: Plagiarism has nothing to do with this issue.  It has absolutely nothing to do with this issue.
zh_TW: 抄襲與這個問題無關。這與這個問題完全無關。

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en: Plagiarism means copying the text of a work and claiming to have written it yourself.  But patents are not concerned with the text of any particular work.  They simply have nothing to do with this.
zh_TW: 抄襲是指複製作品的文字，並聲稱是自己寫的。但是專利與任何特定作品的文字無關。它們根本與此事無關。

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en: If you write a work and this work embodies some ideas, which it always does, there's no reason to think that the patents covering those ideas would belong to you.  They're more likely to belong to lots of others, and half of them to the megacorporations, and they can then all sue you.  So you don't even have to worry [about plagiarism]; long before you get to the point where somebody else might copy it, you're going to be getting the shaft.
zh_TW: 如果你寫一部作品，而這部作品體現了一些想法，而它總是這樣，那麼沒有理由認為涵蓋這些想法的專利將屬於你。其更有可能屬於其他很多人，其中一半屬於大型公司，然後他們都可以起訴你。所以你甚至不用擔心（抄襲）；早在你到達別人可能複製它的地步之前，你就會受害。

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en: You are confusing patents with copyrights, I'm afraid.  They have nothing in common.  I've explained to you what the patent system does to software, but I think you don't believe me because you've heard what copyrights do and you're confusing the two, so these impressions you've got about what copyrights do, you're just assuming that patents do them also&mdash;and they don't.  If you write some code, the copyright on that code would belong to you; but if your code implements ideas, if some of these ideas are patented, those patents belong to others who could then sue you.
zh_TW: 您大概把專利和著作權混淆了。它們沒有什麼共同點。我已經向您解釋了專利制度對軟體的影響，但我認為您不相信我，因為您聽說過著作權做了什麼，而您混淆了兩者。所以您有對於著作權的印象，您只是假設專利也作一樣的事 —— 但並非如此。如果您寫一些程式碼，該程式碼的著作權將屬於您；但是，如果您的程式碼實現的想法，其中有一些想法是屬於專利的，那麼這些專利屬於可以起訴您的人。

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en: You don't have to be afraid, with copyright, that when you write code yourself, that somebody else already has a copyright on it and can sue you, because copyright only restricts copying.  In fact, even if you write something which is identical to what somebody else wrote, if you can prove you didn't copy it, that's a defense under copyright law, because copyright law is only concerned with copying.  But copyright law is only concerned with the details of authorship of a work [i.e., not the ideas it embodies], so it has nothing in common with patent law in terms of what it deals with, and the effects are totally different.
zh_TW: 如果是您自己寫的程式碼，你不必害怕別人有著作權可以起訴你，因為著作權只限制複製。事實上，即使你寫的東西與別人寫的一模一樣，如果你能證明你沒有複製它，這就可以做為著作權法規的辯詞，因為著作權法只涉及複製。但著作權法只涉及作品的創作細節（而不是它所體現的想法），因此就其所處理的內容而言，它與專利法沒有任何共同之處，而且效果完全不同。

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en: Now I'm not in favor personally of all the things that people do with copyright law, I've criticized it.  But it's a totally different, unrelated issue.  If you think that patent law helps somebody who is developing software, it means that you have got a completely wrong picture of what patent law actually does.
zh_TW: 目前我個人不贊成人們使用著作權法所做的一切，我已經批評過了。但這是一個完全不同的，無關的問題。如果您認為專利法對開發軟體的人有所幫助，這代表了您已經完全理解錯了專利法的實際作用。

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en: Don't get me wrong.  I'm on your side.
zh_TW: 別誤會我的意思。我是站在您這邊的。

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en: OK, but still you've got a wrong picture.  I'm not blaming you for it, because you've just been misinformed.
zh_TW: 好吧，但您還是理解錯了。我不怪您，因為您只是被誤導了。

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en: If I'm writing software for commercial purposes, do I get good protection by treating it as a black box and keeping it secret?
zh_TW: 如果我正為商業目的編寫軟體，我是否可以透過將其視為黑盒子並將其保密來獲得良好的保護？

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en: I don't want to discuss that question because I'm not in favor of it, I think it's unethical to do that, but that's an unrelated issue.
zh_TW: 我不想討論這個問題， 因為我不贊成，我認為這是不道德的，但這是一個無關的問題。

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en: I understand that.
zh_TW: 我明白。

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en: I don't want to change the subject and then praise something that I think is bad.  But because it's a change of subject I'd rather not get into that.
zh_TW: 我不想轉移話題， 然後讚揚一些我認為不好的東西。但因為這是一個轉移話題，我寧願不談。

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en: Our Foundation for Research, Science, and Technology, I think they're probably the equivalent of your National Science Foundation, provides grants for research and development and one of the things that they propose pretty actively is that ideas that they have funded should be secured if possible by patents.
zh_TW: 我們的研究、科學與技術基金會，我認為其可能相當於你們的國家科學基金會，為研究和發展提供資助，他們非常積極地提出一件事，亦即如果可能，他們資助的想法應該透過專利來保護。

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en: That shouldn't be the case in software, because software ideas shouldn't be patentable ever by anyone.  But what you are seeing there, more generally, is an example of the general corruption of our society by putting commercial aims above all others.  Now I'm not a communist and I don't want to abolish business, but when it becomes business above all, every aspect of life oriented towards business, that is dangerous.
zh_TW: 對於軟體來說不該是如此，因為軟體創意不應該被任何人申請專利。但更普遍的是，你在那裡看到的，是我們社會普遍腐敗的一個例子，把商業目的置於一切之上。我並不是共產主義者，我不想廢除商業，但是當它成為商業至上時，生活的方方面面都以商業為導向，這會相當危險。

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en: So Richard, if you talk to the Foundation, perhaps you might propose that there are better ways for a small country like New Zealand to make money on software.
zh_TW: 所以 Richard，如果您可以和基金會談談，也許你可以建議像紐西蘭這樣的小國有更好的方法透過軟體賺錢。

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en: Software patents don't help anybody make money out of software.  They mean that you're in danger of getting sued when you try.
zh_TW: 軟體專利不能幫助任何人從軟體中賺錢。他們代表了，當您嘗試時，您有被起訴的危險。

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en: Which makes it difficult for New Zealand as a country to build an economic base using software as part of that.
zh_TW: 什麼讓紐西蘭很難以一個國家的身份使用軟體作為其經濟基礎的一部分？

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en: Sorry, when you say &ldquo;which&rdquo; I don't know what you are referring to.  Software patents will make it difficult for anyone.  If New Zealand allows software patents, that will make it difficult in New Zealand for anybody to develop programs and distribute them, because you'll be in danger of getting sued.  Software patents have nothing to do with developing a program and then putting it to some use.
zh_TW: 抱歉，當您說「什麼」時，我不知道您指的是什麼。軟體專利會讓任何人都感到困難。如果紐西蘭允許軟體專利，那麼在紐西蘭任何人都將難以開發和分發程式，因為您將面臨被起訴的危險。軟體專利與開發程式然後投入使用無關。

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en: So New Zealand, in terms of its economic development, it would be better protected by having no software patents.
zh_TW: 所以紐西蘭，在經濟發展方面，如果沒有軟體專利，會得到更好的保護。

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en: Yes.  You see, each country has its own patent system, and they work independently, except that countries have signed up to a treaty that says, &ldquo;If you have got a patent in that country, you can basically bring your application over here, and we'll judge it based on the year you applied for it over there.&rdquo; But other than that, each country has its own criteria for what can be patented and has its own set of patents.
zh_TW: 是的。您看，每個國家都有自己的專利制度，都是獨立運作的，除非國家簽署了一個條約，上面寫著：「如果你在那個國家獲得了專利，你基本上可以把你的申請帶來這裡，我們會根據你在那邊申請的年份來判斷。」但除此之外，每個國家都有自己的專利標準，並擁有自己的專利組合。

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en: So the result is if the US allows software patents and New Zealand does not, that means that everybody in the world, including New Zealanders, can get US software patents and sue us poor Americans at home.  But if New Zealand doesn't allow software patents that means that neither you nor we can get New Zealand software patents to sue you New Zealanders at home.  You can be sure that almost all the software patents will belong to foreigners who will use them to basically kick any New Zealand software developers whenever they get the chance.
zh_TW: 所以結果是，如果美國允許軟體專利而紐西蘭不允許，那就意味著世界上每個人，包括紐西蘭人，都可以取得美國的軟體專利，並在國內起訴我們這些可憐的美國人。但是，如果紐西蘭不允許軟體專利，那意味著您和我們都無法獲得紐西蘭軟體專利來起訴在國內的紐西蘭人。可以肯定的是，幾乎所有的軟體專利都屬於外國人，只要有機會，他們就會用它們基本上排除任何紐西蘭軟體開發者。

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en: Since the Hughes Aircraft case, I think it was in the 1990s
zh_TW: 自從休斯飛機案以來，我想那是在1990年代……

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en: I don't know about that case.
zh_TW: 我不知道那個案子。

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en: But basically New Zealand's had software patents.  It's not like we're going into a field where we don't already have them, we do.
zh_TW: 但基本上紐西蘭目前擁有軟體專利。所以這並非我們要進入一個我們還沒有這些東西的領域，我們正處在其中。

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en: I don't know, but I'm told that there's a decision being made now at the legislative level of whether to allow them.  But Patent Offices often respond to lobbying from megacorporations through WIPO.
zh_TW: 我不知道，但有人告訴我，現在正在立法層面做出是否允許它們的決定。但專利局經常對大公司透過 WIPO 的遊說做出回應。

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en: WIPO, as you can tell from its name, which is the World Intellectual Property Organization, is up to no good, because any use of that term is spreading confusion.  WIPO gets a lot of its funds from megacorporations, and uses those funds to bring officials from Patent Offices to idyllic resort destinations for training.  What they train them to do is twist the law to allow patents in areas where they're not supposed to be allowed.
zh_TW: WIPO（World Intellectual Property Organization —— 世界智慧財產權組織），一事無成，因為任何使用該術語（譯者註：應是指智慧財產權）的行為都會造成混淆。WIPO 從大公司處獲得大量資金，並利用這些資金將專利局的官員帶到田園詩般的度假勝地接受培訓。他們訓練他們做的是扭曲法律，允許在不應該被允許的領域獲得專利。

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en: In many countries there are laws and court decisions which say that software as such can't be patented, algorithms can't be patented, or &ldquo;mathematical&rdquo; algorithms can't be patented (no one's quite sure what it means for an algorithm to be mathematical or not), and various other criteria which if interpreted naturally would rule out software patents, but the patent offices twist the law to allow them anyway.
zh_TW: 在許多地區，法律和法院判決規定，軟體本身不能獲得專利，演算法不能獲得專利，或者「數學」演算法不能獲得專利（沒有人能完全確定演算法是不是數學），以及各種其他標準，在自然解釋下將排除軟體專利，但專利局扭曲了法律，無論如何都允許它們。

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en: Patent Offices will generally try to twist the law into allowing more patents.  In the US software patents were created by a court decision in 1982, in the Appeals Court that deals with all patent cases, which misunderstood a Supreme Court decision from the previous year, and misapplied it.  Now it looks like that Appeals Court has finally changed its mind, and it's come to the conclusion that it was mistaken all along; and it looks like this decision will get rid of all software patents, unless the Supreme Court reverses it.  The Supreme Court is now considering it, and within less than a year we should find out whether we've won or lost.
zh_TW: 專利局通常會試圖扭曲法律以允許更多專利。在美國，軟體專利是由法院於1982年在審理所有專利案件的上訴法院中建立x的，該法院誤解了最高法院前一年的判決並誤用了該判決。現在看來，上訴法院終於改變主意了，得出的結論是他們一直都是錯的；看起來這個決定將取消所有軟體專利，除非最高法院撤銷它。最高法院現在正在考慮，不到一年的時間，我們應該會知道我們是贏了還是輸了。

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en: Should that case be unsuccessful, is there any movement in the States to take a legislated solution?
zh_TW: 如果這個案子不成功，美國是否有採取立法方案的行動？

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en: Yes, and I been promoting this for about 19 years now.  It's a battle that we fight over and over in various different countries.
zh_TW: 是的，我已經推廣了大約十九年了。這是一場我們在不同國家打過一遍又一遍地的戰鬥。

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en: Where in your universe do you put the in I4i case?
zh_TW: 您有思考過 I4i 的案件嗎？

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en: I have no idea what that is.
zh_TW: 我不知道那是什麼。

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en: It's where Microsoft has basically almost had to shut down on selling Word, because they were found to have infringed a Canadian patent.
zh_TW: 這是讓微軟幾乎不得不停止銷售 Word 的案件，因為他們被發現侵犯了加拿大的專利。

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en: Obviously we live in an imperfect world, and in some cases we run into the issue of software patents.  Do you think that we should allow privileges for researchers to get around patents in the same way that copyright law allows research on copyright material?
zh_TW: 顯然，我們生活在一個不完美的世界中，在某些情況下，我們會遇到軟體專利問題。您認為我們是否應該像著作權法允許對有著作權的素材進行研究一樣，讓研究人員享有繞過專利的特權？

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en: No, it's a mistake to look for partial solutions, because we have a much better chance of establishing a full solution.  Everybody involved in software development and distribution and use, except the ones in the megacorporations, when they see how dangerous software patents are, they will get behind total rejection of software patents.  Whereas an exception for some special case will only win support from the people in that special case.  These partial solutions are essentially distractions.  People start by saying, &ldquo;Oh, I'm sure we can't really solve the problem, so I give up on that.  Let me propose a partial solution.&rdquo; But these partial solutions don't make it safe to develop software.
zh_TW: 不，尋找部分解決方案是錯誤的，因為我們有更好的機會建立完整的解決方案。所有參與軟體開發、散佈和使用的人，除了大公司的那些人以外，看到軟體專利有多麼危險時，他們都會支持完全拒絕軟體專利。而某些特殊情況的例外只會贏得該特殊情況下人們的支持。這些部分解決方案本質上是干擾。人們開始說：「哦，我確定我們不能真正解決問題，所以我放棄了。讓我提出一個部分解決方案。」但是這些部分解決方案並不能保證開發軟體的安全。

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en: You wouldn't, however, oppose a partial solution that's not necessarily just directed at software patents, so you wouldn't oppose experimental use, which may be a good solution for the pharmaceutical patent.
zh_TW: 但是，您不會反對不一定只針對軟體專利的部分解決方案，因此您不會反對實驗性使用，這對於藥物專利來說可能是一個很好的解決方案。

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en: I wouldn't oppose that.
zh_TW: 我不會反對。

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en: But what you're saying is that you don't think it's applicable to software, just to clarify.
zh_TW: 但是你說的是你認為它不適用於軟體，我只想釐清一下。

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en: Something that saves only a few of us, or only certain activities, or gets rid of half the software patents, that's analogous to saying, &ldquo;Well, maybe we could clear part of the minefield, or maybe we could destroy half the mines in the minefield.&rdquo; [That's an improvement] but that doesn't make it safe.
zh_TW: 一些只拯救我們幾個人，或者只拯救某些活動，或者擺脫一半軟體專利的東西，這就像是說：「好吧，也許我們可以清除部分地雷區，或者我們可以摧毀一半的地雷區。」 （這是進步）但這並不會使其變得安全。

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en: So you've been speaking the same thing all around the world.  How much uptake has there been? Have governments changed, or not adopted software patents?
zh_TW: 所以你在世界各地都在說同樣的話。被吸收了多少？政府是否更改或未採用軟體專利？

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en: Some have.  In India a few years ago, there was an attempt to change patent law to explicitly allow software patents and it was dropped.  A few years ago the US proposed a trade treaty, a free exploitation treaty, with Latin America.  And it was blocked by the president of Brazil, who said no to software patents and another nasty thing relating to computers, and that killed the whole treaty.  That's apparently the whole thing that the US wanted to impose on the rest of the continent.  But these things don't stay dead; there are companies that have full-time staff looking for some way they can subvert some country or other.
zh_TW: 有些有。幾年前，印度曾試圖修改專利法，明確允許軟體專利，但被放棄了。幾年前，美國提出了與拉丁美洲的貿易條約，即自由剝削條約。它被巴西總統阻止，他對軟體專利和其他與電腦有關令人討厭的事說不，這導致整個條約終止。這顯然是美國整個想要強加給非洲大陸其他地區的事情。但這些東西不會結束；有些公司擁有全職員工，正在尋找可以顛覆某個國家或其他國家的方法。

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en: Is there any real hard data around what happens in economic terms in the innovation communities in countries that have essentially no software patents?
zh_TW: 在基本上沒有軟體專利的國家的創新社群中，是否有任何關於經濟方面發生的真實可見的資料？

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en: There isn't any.  It's almost impossible to measure these things.  Actually, I shouldn't say there isn't any.  There is a little.  It's very hard to measure the effect of the patent system, because you're comparing the real world with a counterfactual world, and there's no way to be sure what would happen.
zh_TW: 沒有。衡量這些東西幾乎是不可能的。實際上，我不應該說沒有。有一點。很難衡量專利制度的效果，因為您將現實世界與假設世界進行比較，並且無法確定會發生什麼。

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en: What I can say is before there were software patents, there was lots of software development; not as much as there is now, because of course there were nowhere near as many computer users.
zh_TW: 我能說的是，在有軟體專利之前，有很多軟體被開發；雖然沒有現在那麼多，因為當然沒有現在這麼多的電腦使用者。

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en: Do you expect that there would be any interest in trade secrets?
zh_TW: 您預期會有人對商業秘密感興趣嗎？

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en: No.  Before there were software patents, a lot of software developers kept the details of their programs secret.  But they usually wouldn't keep any of the general ideas secret, because that they realized that the big job in developing good software was not picking your general ideas, it was implementing a lot of ideas together.  So they would publish, [or] they would let their employees publish, in scholarly journals any interesting new ideas that they'd had.  So now, they'll patent those new ideas.  It has very little to do with developing a useful program, and just letting people know some ideas doesn't give them a program.  Besides, most of the ideas, the thousands of ideas you've combined in your program, are known anyway.
zh_TW: 不。在有軟體專利之前，很多軟體開發人員都對他們的程式細節保密。但是他們通常不會對任何一般想法保密，因為他們意識到開發優秀軟體的重要工作不是挑選您的一般想法，而是將很多想法結合在一起並實現。所以他們會發表，或讓他們的員工在學術期刊上發表他們所擁有的任何有趣的新想法。而現在，他們將為這些新想法申請專利。它與開發一個有用的程式關係不大，僅僅讓人們知道一些想法並不能給他們一個程式。此外，大多數想法，您在程式中組合的數千個想法，無論如何都是已知的。

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en: To back that up, I was listening to an interview, one of the founders of PayPal was interviewed, and he said that he really felt strongly that his success was 5 percent idea and 95 percent execution, and that supports your point really well.
zh_TW: 要證明這個點，我得說我聽過一個採訪，PayPal 的一位創始人接受了採訪，他說他非常強烈地感受到他的成功是 5% 的想法和 95% 的執行，這非常支持你的觀點。

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en: I agree.
zh_TW: 我同意。

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en: Excellent.  Richard has here stickers which I believe are free
zh_TW: 很好。理查在這裡提供了我認為是免費的貼紙。

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en: Gratis.  And these [other items] are for sale.
zh_TW: 免費。而這些（其他物品）是要用來販售的。

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en: So you're welcome to come down.  It's been a great debate&mdash;thank you Richard.
zh_TW: 那麼，謝謝您。這是一場精彩的辯論 —— 謝謝您，Richard。

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en: Please send general FSF &amp; GNU inquiries to <a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org">&lt;gnu@gnu.org&gt;</a>.  There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> the FSF.  Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org">&lt;webmasters@gnu.org&gt;</a>.
zh_TW: 請來信到 <a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org">&lt;gnu@gnu.org&gt;</a> 詢問有關自由軟體基金會（FSF）和 GNU 的一般問題；或者<a href="/contact/">以其他方式</a>聯絡自由軟體基金會。至於損毀的連結及其他修正和建議，可以將之寄給 <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org">&lt;webmasters@gnu.org&gt;</a>。

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en: This page is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.
zh_TW: 本頁面採用<a rel="license" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/deed.zh_TW">創用 CC 姓名標示-禁止改作 4.0 國際</a>條款給予授權。

note: TRANSLATORS: Use space (SPC) as msgstr if you don't want credits. type: Content of: <div><div>
en: *GNUN-SLOT: TRANSLATOR'S CREDITS*
zh_TW: <b>翻譯</b>：胡景竑  <a href="mailto:henryhu22134 (at) gmail (dot) com">&lt;henryhu22134 (at) gmail (dot) com&gt;</a>, 2021<br />
    <b>校對</b>：黃柏諺 <a href="mailto:s8321414 (at) gmail (dot) com">&lt;s8321414 (at) gmail (dot) com&gt;</a>, 2021.

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en: Updated:
zh_TW: 更新時間︰
