評論
打印
Business
商業
An intellectual-property exchange
知識產權交易所
Marketplace of ideas
創意市場
A new financial exchange hopes to make it easier to trade patent rights
一個嶄新的金融交易所希望讓專利權的交易變得更容易
THE technology industry is at war over intellectual property. On May 7th the first round of a three-part fight between Oracle and Google over patent and copyright claims relating to the Java programming language ended in a decision that denied outright victory to either firm. Apple, Samsung and others are fighting over smartphone patents. Facebook and Yahoo! are at loggerheads over internet patents. Accusations abound that innovation is taking a back seat to litigation. Only the lawyers are smiling.
科技業界打響了知識產權保衛戰。甲骨文和Google之間關于Java編程語言的專利和版權的戰斗拉開了這場由三部分組成的保衛戰的序幕。2012年5月7日，這第一輪戰斗以雙方都沒有得到徹底勝利宣告結束。蘋果、三星以及行業內其他企業正在爭奪智能手機專利權。Facebook和雅虎在互聯網專利上發生了沖突。指控比比皆是，如今在訴訟面前科技創新只能靠邊站。只有律師軍團正微笑著。
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 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.
芝加哥國際知識產權交易所(IPXI)的老板杰拉德Pannekoek稱，所有這些專利侵權訴訟案件制造了一個很好的時機來啟動一個新的方法來交易知識產權。芝加哥知識產權交易所是一個新的金融交易所，在這里就像任何其他資產一樣企業可以購買、銷售、對沖專利權。這個主意就是提供一項專利或是作為一個許可權單元的專利組，這些都可以像股票一樣進行購買拋售。一個URL授權在一個產品中一次性應用某項技術，就像是一輛汽車上的一種新型的安全氣囊傳感器。如果一個公司想在10萬輛汽車上使用這項技術，那么他得要以市場價購買10萬份專利許可。專利許可預計也將會在二級市場進行交易。
This is simpler, faster and cheaper than the lawyer-intensive process of negotiating bilateral licences for intellectual property, the high cost of which discriminates against small companies, leaves patents unused on the shelf and hampers innovation. IPXI's approach does not work for all types of intellectual property-it does not allow exclusive licensing, 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.
相對于知識產權雙邊談判的律師們的密集過程，這是更簡單、更快、更便宜的方法。而且，對于小公司而言，雙邊談判所帶來的高成本是不可接受的，他們只有把專利權擱置，從而阻礙了科技的創新。知識產權交易所(IPXI)的這個方法不是適用于所有類型的知識產權，例如它不允許獨家授權，而是將使得公司更加容易地從他們的創造發明中賺取更多的利益。IPXI總裁兼首席執行官GerardJ.Pannekoek認為，對于新創公司而言，這是個不稀釋(non-dilutive)每股收益的集資好方式。
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 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?
這個交易所已經簽署30成員，包括電子巨頭飛利浦以及幾所大學和研究實驗室。專門經營知識產權的商業銀行公司Ocean Tomo在2008年成立了芝加哥國際知識產權交易所(IPXI)，其投資者包括芝加哥期權交易所控股公司(CBOE Holdings Inc)。5月4日IPXI出版發行了這個交易所將要工作的規范手冊，交易所有望今年下半年進行交易。飛利浦首席知識產權官路畢德（Ruud Peters）認為，IPXI這個新穎的方法對于具有開放性，非專屬授權性的智能手機相關專利來說是最適合的，不切實際的?；蛟S，這是創新者的好消息，但是對于律師團來說就是個壞消息。
