美国专利制度无益于创新_时事_双语阅读-查字典英语网

美国专利制度无益于创新

When not patenting building blocks, tech groups patent chunks of territory, like cats marking out their land. Last month Apple secured a patent for a swath of products using touch screens with “four and five dimensional capability, whatever that may mean. Some patents are kept deliberately low-profile in hopes that deep-pocketed companies will violate them unknowingly, at which point patent holders pounce. Last year US companies spent about $29bn fending off raids from “non-practising entities, also known as patent trolls, litigators who own bundles of patents with no intention of using them to build products.

如果不为产品组成部分申请专利的话，科技公司便会通过专利将大片领域据为己有，就像猫咪占地为王一样。上个月，苹果成功地为一系列使用带“四维和五维功能（管它是什么意思）触屏的产品申请专利。有些公司在申请专利的时候故意保持低调，指望有钱的公司无意中侵权，然后伺机杀出。去年，美国公司花费290亿美元用来抵御“非经营实体的攻击——“非经营实体也被称为“专利钓饵公司(patent troll)，这些专门打专利官司的公司手中掌握着大批专利，却无意用它们制造产品。

Outside the tech industry, more madness reigns. As Keith Maskus notes in a forthcoming book, Private rights and public problems, Smucker’s, a food company, used to wield a patent covering a “method of making crustless peanut butter sandwiches. The National Football League has attempted to assert ownership over the phrase “Who Dat?, while a celebrated basketball coach once registered trademarks on the phrase “three-peat in anticipation of winning a third consecutive championship. (He did not, which served him right.) In a better world, the US Patent and Trademark Office would take care not to approve frivolous and overlapping applications. But its examiners are swamped.