NOT LONG after a jury in the Californian city of San Jose concluded on August 24th that Samsung should pay Apple just over $1 billion in damages for infringing six of the American firm’s software and design patents, stills from a year-old sitcom episode, in which a character demonstrates an absurd triangular tablet computer, began recirculating on the internet. The images were being used to poke fun at the jury’s ruling that the South Korean firm had copied the shape of Apple’s wildly popular iPhone, which (like most) is rectangular with curved corners.
8月24日，在加州的圣何塞，某陪审团裁定三星公司侵犯了苹果公司的六項软件和设计专利，應向后者这家美国公司支付10亿余美元的损失赔偿金。不久之后，一组情景喜剧的剧照在网上流传开来。这部情景喜剧于一年前上映，在剧照中，剧中人物展示了一部古怪的三角形平板電脑。苹果公司广受欢迎的 iPhone （和大多数类似产品一样）采用了圓角矩形的造型，陪審团裁定三星这家韓国公司抄袭了该特征。網上剧照的寓意正是嘲弄这一判决。
The titanic tussle between the two giants, which has led to one of the biggest penalties for patent violations in legal history, is far from over. On August 28th Apple said it wanted Lucy Koh, the judge presiding over the case, to ban the sale in America of eight of Samsung’s smartphones. Samsung, which is trying to persuade the judge to overturn the jury’s overall verdict, said it would “take all necessary measures” to keep its products on sale. Judge Koh has scheduled a hearing for September 20th to review an existing ban on sales in America of a version of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablet computer. Another hearing is set for December to consider imposing a ban on the phones targeted by Apple.
两家巨头之间的这场大搏斗远未结束，它產生的专利侵权罚金堪称法律史上最高额处罰之一。8月28日，苹果公司要求该案主审法官 Lucy Koh 禁止三星在美国销售其八款智能手机。三星试图说服法官推翻陪审团的全部裁决，稱该公司將“采取一切必要措施”来继续销售产品。三星目前已有一款 Galaxy Tab 平板電腦在美国遭到禁售，Koh 法官定于9月20日召开听證会，对这一禁售令展开审查。十二月将舉行另一场听证会，决定是否要对苹果提出的八款三星手机实行禁售。
Even if these devices are blocked, the impact on Samsung’s bottom line should be modest because a ban will affect older devices, not the firm’s snazzy new Galaxy phones. But the case still has big implications for the tech industry, which is facing a tsunami of patent-related lawsuits. It shows how patents covering the look and feel of devices are increasingly being “weaponised” by their holders. It highlights the propensity of juries to award huge damages in intellectual-property disputes. And it will give added ammunition to those who feel that the current system of granting and policing tech patents in America needs to be overhauled.
即使这些機型被禁售了，对于三星最終赢利的影响应该也不太明顯，因为禁售令将仅仅影響到较老的機型，而不会影响到三星公司时尚亮丽的新型 Galaxy 手機。但本案件仍然对技术产业有重大影響——專利相关诉讼已经在该产业中掀起了轩然大波。本案件表明了越来越多的专利持有者把涉及產品外观和使用感受的专利 “当作武器来使用”。这一案件讓人们注意到，在知识财产纠纷中，陪审团如今倾向于判罚巨额的損失费。有些人认为美国当前的技术专利授予及监督系统需要进行改革，本案也将让他们找到更多的有力证据。
The legal battle between Samsung and Apple is also intriguing because the archenemies work closely together. Samsung is one of the biggest suppliers of components such as memory chips for Apple’s gadgets. But its phones and tablets, which so far have used Google’s Android operating system, compete head-on with Apple’s iPhones and iPad tablets. The tension between the two firms has grown as competition in the smartphone arena has intensified (see article). Gartner, a research firm, says that more than half of the smartphones shipped worldwide in the second quarter run on Android. Apple’s late boss, Steve Jobs, promised “thermonuclear war” against what he saw as Android’s systematic copying of Apple features.
三星和苹果之间的法律纠纷也有些耐人寻味，因为这对死敌同时也在密切合作。三星是苹果产品最大的零配件供应商之一，为其提供存储芯片等等。但三星的手机和平板电脑迄今为止用的都是谷歌的安卓操作系统，和苹果公司的 iPhone 和 iPad 平板电脑展开了正面竞争。随着智能手机战线的竞争日趨白熱化，两家公司之间的紧张态势也随之升级（見另文）。研究公司 Gartner 表示，今年第二季度全球市面上超過50%的智能手機安装的都是安卓系统。苹果公司已故总裁史蒂芬?乔布斯认為安卓“系统地”抄袭了蘋果产品的特性，他曾表示要为此和安卓“决一死战”【注2】。
Samsung has been leading the charge of the Androids. To counter it, Apple has launched a bombardment of lawsuits against its rival around the world, claiming that Samsung’s devices breach various patents it holds. On the day that the jury in San Jose delivered its ruling, a court in South Korea hearing a similar case said both firms were guilty of patent violations against the other and banned some of their devices from sale in the country. But since America is the world’s largest market for consumer electronics, the Californian ruling will have a far greater impact.
三星已经引領使用安卓系统的各手机品牌发起了冲鋒。作为回應，蘋果在全球范围向这一竞爭对手提起了连珠炮式的诉讼，称三星产品侵犯了苹果持有的多项专利。就在圣何塞陪審团下达判決的当天，韩国一家法院对类似的一起案件展開了聽審。在这起案件中，苹果和三星都受到了指控。院方称两家公司互相侵犯了彼此的专利，并在韩国对双方的某些產品进行了禁售。但由于美国是全球最大的消费性电子产品市场，加州判决的影响将大得多。
The jury in San Jose concluded that Samsung had violated several of Apple’s utility patents covering things such as bounce-back scrolling, which makes such things as on-screen icons and web pages rebound if swiped too far, and tap-to-zoom functionality, which makes it easy to zero in on, say, an image or a map. It also said the South Korean company had copied the overall look of the iPhone, including the rounded corners of icons, thus breaching several of Apple’s design patents. To add insult to injury, the jurors tossed out the South Korean firm’s claims that Apple had ripped off some of its own innovations.
圣何塞的陪审团判定三星侵犯了苹果的几項实用专利，比如回弹滚屏（该技术讓屏幕上的图标和网页能够在滑開太远的情况下彈回原位置）和點击缩放功能（該技術让用户可以更加方便地縮放图像或地图等）。陪审团還宣布这家韓国公司模仿了 iPhone 的整体外观（包括图标圆角在内），因此侵犯了蘋果的几项设计專利。三星称苹果剽窃了自己的几項創新，但是被各陪审员駁回了，这对这家韩国公司来說更是雪上加霜。
Samsung and other firms are likely to tweak the design of their devices to avoid further legal bombshells in America. Some patent lawyers say this is as it should be. “In many ways, the system is working well from an economic viewpoint,” says Wil Rao of McAndrews, Held & Malloy, a law firm. But other experts worry that design patents in particular are often drawn too broadly and granted too easily.
三星和其他公司有可能对产品设计做出细微调整，以避免在美国受到更多的法律轰击。有些专利律师认为它們本该如此。法律公司 McAndrews Held & Malloy 的 Wil Rao 表示：“从经济角度来看，专利系統在很多方面還是有效的。”但也有专家担憂各项专利的涉及面太过宽泛，授予方式太過草率——其中以設計专利为甚。
Whopping penalties imposed on patent infringers are also a cause for concern. Some experts blame these on the increased use of juries in patent cases. According to a study published last year by PWC, a consultancy, juries decided an average of 14% of such cases in America in the 1980s; since 2000 that figure has risen to 56%. The problem, says Brian Love, a law professor at Santa Clara University, is that jurors tend to have a gut reaction against patent violators and therefore often award damages that are vastly higher than the economic harm that has been done. Experienced judges tend to see things in a more nuanced light.
对专利侵权者施加的巨额罚金同样也引起了焦慮。有些专家把高昂的罚金归咎于越来越多的专利案件受到了陪审团的调查。根據咨询公司 PWC 去年发布的调查報告，在20世纪80年代，美国的此類案件平均有14%是由陪审团做出判决的；自2000年开始，这个數字上升到了56%。圣克拉拉大學法学教授 Brian Love 表示，问题在于陪审員往往对专利侵权者做出本能反應，因此判处的赔偿金通常比实际经济損失要高昂许多。而经验丰富的法官往往从更细微的角度来看待问题。
A well-known federal judge, Richard Posner, an outspoken critic of America’s patent system, has even suggested that the country’s Patent and Trademark Office be given the job of hearing patent disputes—and sufficient resources to handle a wider remit. Apple knows Judge Posner all too well. Earlier this year, he dismissed a lawsuit it brought against Motorola Mobility, mocking some of the claims Apple had made about the harm it had suffered. Samsung’s lawyers, trying to get the August ruling reversed, will be hoping Judge Koh looks closely at her colleague’s findings when battle resumes in San Jose.
著名的联邦法官 Richard Posner 直言不讳地批评美国的专利系统，他甚至提议让美国專利及商标局负责听审专利糾纷——并给予该部门足够的资金，以便其在更大范围展开工作。苹果公司太了解 Posner 法官了。今年早些时候，这位法官驳回了苹果公司对摩托罗拉移動公司提起的訴讼，無视苹果要求的几项受害索赔。而三星的律师試图推翻加州陪審团在八月做出的判决。日后，这场诉讼之战将在圣何塞继续展開。届时，這些律师将希望 Koh 法官仔细研究她同事們的調查结果。
译者注：
1. 关于标题 Swipe, pinch and zoom to the courtroom. swipe、pinch、和 zoom to 都是人們使用智能手機時的动作。swipe 表示用手指划过触摸屏。pinch 和 zoom to 表示用拇指和食指进行圖片、网页等的缩放。
2. thermonuclear war 意为“熱核战爭”，即用核武器等大规模杀伤性武器來作戰。这是乔帮主生前提出的对抗安卓策略，文中譯为“决一死戰”。
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发表于 2017-7-22 20:59:22
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