经济学人09:知识产权交易 创意集市

 　　Business.

　　商业。
　　An intellectual-property exchange.
　　知识产权交易。
　　Marketplace of ideas.
　　创意集市。
　　A new financial exchange hopes to make it easier to trade patent rights.
　　愿新型金融交易让专利买卖更容易。
　　THE technology industry is at war over intellectual property. On May 7th the first round of a three-part fight between Oracle 1 and Google over patent and copyright claims relating to the Java programming language ended in a decision that denied outright 2 victory to either firm. Apple, Samsung and others are fighting over smartphone patents. Facebook and Yahoo! are at loggerheads over internet patents. Accusations 3 abound 4 that innovation is taking a back seat to litigation. Only the lawyers are smiling.
　　科技产业就知识产权的问题一直纷争不断。5月7日，甲骨文和谷歌就与编程语言Java相关的专利和版权声明进行了多回合的首轮较量，结果双方铩羽而归。苹果、三星及其他厂商在智能手机的专利权问题上拼得焦头烂额。脸谱网和雅虎也因互联网专利闹得很不愉快。官司铺天盖地，逼得创新给诉讼让位。唯独律师喜笑颜开。
　　All of which makes this a good time to launch a new approach to trading intellectual property, says Gerard Pannekoek, the boss of IPXI, a new financial exchange that lets companies buy, sell and hedge patent rights, just like any other asset. The idea is to offer a patent or group of patents as "unit licence rights" (ULRs), which can be bought and sold like shares. A ULR grants a one-time right to use a particular technology in a single product: a new type of airbag sensor 5 in a car, say. If a company wants to use the technology in 100,000 cars, it buys 100,000 ULRs at the market price. ULRs are also expected to be traded on secondary markets.
　　这些纷争为知识产权交易创造了良机，国际知识产权交易所公司（IPXI）联席主席拉德?潘涅库克如是说到。像处置资产一样，该交易所的新型金融交易可以让公司购买、出售并保有专利权。该公司的构想是将专利单个或打包成授权的专利组合提供，这些专利可以像股份一样买卖。一个授权专利组合允许在单件产品上一次性使用某个技术：这就是说，一个新式的安全气囊传感器仅能用于一辆轿车。若一家公司想在十万量轿车上都应用该技术，它就得按市场价购进同等数量的技术许可。授权的专利组合也可在二级市场上交易。
　　This is simpler, faster and cheaper than the lawyer-intensive process of negotiating bilateral 6 licences for intellectual property, the high cost of which discriminates 7 against small companies, leaves patents unused on the shelf and hampers 8 innovation. IPXI's approach does not work for all types of intellectual property-it does not allow exclusive licensing 9, for example-but should make it easier for companies to make money from their inventions. "It's a great form of non-dilutive funding for start-ups," suggests Mr. Pannekoek.
　　用这种办法交易知识产权，要比采用律师密集型的双边专利授权协商来的快，也更简单、更廉价。司法协商费用高昂，对小企业不公，也会让专利受束高阁，从而有碍创新。然而，国际知识产权交易所公司的这种专利交易方式并不对各类知识产权通通适用——打个比方来说，它就不允许独家授权——但这种方式让企业通过发明创造来获利更加容易。"对刚上市的公司来说，这种筹款方式能够很好地规避股权收益的减损。"潘涅库克先生这样表示。
　　The exchange has signed up 30 members including Philips, an electronics giant, and several universities and research laboratories. IPXI was set up in 2008 by Ocean Tomo, a merchant bank that specialises in intellectual property, and its investors 10 include CBOE Holdings, the parent company of the Chicago Board Options Exchange. On May 4th IPXI published the rulebook that governs how the exchange will work, and it expects to open for business later this year. Its novel approach is ideal for the open, non-exclusive licensing of smartphone-related patents, says Ruud Peters, chief intellectual-property officer at Philips. Good news for innovators, perhaps, but bad news for lawyers?
　　目前该交易所公司的加盟成员已达30个，其中不乏电子巨头飞利浦，此外，数所大学和研究实验室也投身其中。国际知识产权交易所公司由Ocean Tomo于2008年组建，后者是一家专业服务于知识产权领域的商业银行，芝加哥期权交易所的母公司芝加哥期权交易控股集团（CBOE Holdings）是该银行的投资方之一。5月4日，国际知识产权交易所公司公布了一份规范，用以指导产权买卖，以期于今年晚些时候开放商业性产权交易。飞利浦的首席知识产权官路德?彼得斯称这一新举措将不断开放与智能手机相关的专利、进一步破除独家授权，形势一片大好。对发明家们来说，这或许是个利好消息，可对那些律师来讲呢？