All Our Patent Are Belong To You
Elon Musk, CEO 2014-06-12
伊隆•馬斯克, 特斯拉電動車創辦人兼執行長
Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters. That is no longer the case. They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology.
昨天，特斯拉(電動車)的帕羅奧圖總部還保有一整牆的公司專利。然而基於開源運動的高尚精神，也為了讓電動車科技能夠更上一層樓，這些專利即將走入歷史。
Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.
特斯拉汽車是為了加速永續運輸業的降臨而存在。如果我們要開闢一條屬於電動車的康莊大道，卻在背後埋下智慧財產權的地雷來阻擋其他人，我們其實是與目標背道而馳。現在任何人只要能善意使用我們的技術，特斯拉汽車都不會提出智財權訴訟。
When I started out with my first company, Zip2, I thought patents were a good thing and worked hard to obtain them. And maybe they were good long ago, but too often these days they serve merely to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors. After Zip2, when I realized that receiving a patent really just meant that you bought a lottery ticket to a lawsuit, I avoided them whenever possible.
當年我剛創辦第一家公司: Zip2的時候，我認為專利是很好的東西，於是我努力工作來換取專利。專利在很久以前還可能是好東西，但時至今日它們多半只會被用來打壓進步；在保護財團和大企業的市場地位的同時讓法務人士大賺一筆。而發明人本身卻一無所獲。我賣掉Zip2之後，我才發現原來獲得專利等同買了一張中獎後就準備上法院的樂透彩券。而我是個不論何時都對法院敬而遠之的人。
At Tesla, however, we felt compelled to create patents out of concern that the big car companies would copy our technology and then use their massive manufacturing, sales and marketing power to overwhelm Tesla. We couldn't have been more wrong. The unfortunate reality is the opposite: electric car programs (or programs for any vehicle that doesn't burn hydrocarbons) at the major manufacturers are small to non-existent, constituting an average of far less than 1% of their total vehicle sales.
我創辦特斯拉之後，公司同仁起先認為我們不得不透過專利保護自己，以免汽車大廠複製我們的技術之後利用自家的龐大生產線和行銷優勢來擊潰我們。這種想法真的是大錯特錯了。業界的現況很不幸地正好與想像相反:主流大廠的電動車計劃(或是其他不用消耗汽油或天然氣的車輛專案)小到有如不存在，佔他們銷售總額的比例平均還不到1%。
At best, the large automakers are producing electric cars with limited range in limited volume. Some produce no zero emission cars at all.
現在的汽車大廠頂多以限量和小規模的方式生產電動車，有些廠商甚至只生產零碳排放的車種。
Given that annual new vehicle production is approaching 100 million per year and the global fleet is approximately 2 billion cars, it is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis. By the same token, it means the market is enormous . Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world's factories every day.
現在每一年都有將近一億輛新車上路，而且全世界已經有將近二十億輛的汽車。光是靠特斯拉已經不可能生產出足夠的電動車來因應碳排放危機。用同樣的數據來看，電動車的市場是很龐大的。我們公司真正的競爭對手不是同業生產出來的電動車，而是每天從全世界的工廠大量生產出來的汽油車。
We believe that Tesla, other companies making electric cars, and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform.
我們相信一個公開而且快速演進的科技平台會讓特斯拉、其他電動車同業以及全世界都從中受益。
Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world's most talented engineers. We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla's position in this regard.
歷史已經多次告訴我們:專利在強勢的競爭對手面前頂多能發揮一丁點的保護作用。因此科技界的龍頭地位不是由公司有多少專利來決定，而是公司有多少本事吸納和激勵全世界最具天份的工程團隊。基於這樣的信念，我們相信公開所有的公司專利對特斯拉的市場地位將會有不減反增的效果。
原文(Source)：
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you
新聞(News)：
http://digital.sina.com.hk/news/-7-1525251/1.html
譯：Patrick Shih
By Dragone Uo
