将窃取他国知识产权立为国策

　　张艺谋的《长城》是大烂片无疑，但却有历史依据：外邦曾竭尽全力势图顺走中国火药生产制造技术。

　　另一个让外邦垂涎三尺哈喇子奔流千年的是丝绸。无数混身丝绸之路驼队的商业间谍绞尽脑汁试图获取丝绸机密。

　　中国历代政府虽严防死守，可架不住别人前赴后继、百折不挠，蚕种和蚕茧终于被藏在拐杖中通过丝绸之路被顺走。

　　这些外邦照葫芦画瓢养出的蚕、织成的锦质量虽另当别论，但他们至少先解决了有和没有的问题。

　　虽然过去5千年中少说有4500年中国都是知识产权被顺走的主要对象，可因此说中国是知识产权流失的最大受害者，那就天真了。

　　人类社会生产力水平的发展呈加速且越来越快之势。工业革命爆发后科学技术的进步狂飙突进，日新月异。从十八世纪开始中国就逐渐丢失自己在世界知识产权流失榜单上保持了数千年的第一排名，被大英帝国取代。

　　至于大英帝国的命运？前段时间我看到下面这篇文章，挺有意思，翻译一下。

　　原文我附在了后面。

　　开启美国工业革命的间谍

　　1789年9月的一天，21岁的山姆-斯雷特尔在伦敦登上开往纽约的船只。他家没人知道他将离开英国，他跟旁人仅说他是一个农场帮工。

　　可记忆力超群的他跟农场帮工毫不搭边。

　　斯雷特尔他爸跟德比郡克拉姆溪镇的纺纱厂老板，杰德迪亚-斯图特，是朋友。斯雷特尔14岁去那儿学徒。当时的德比郡就是今天的硅谷，是理查德-阿克怀特著名的“水织机”的故乡，粗棉可以被直接纺到几十个纺锭上。

　　学徒时的山姆-斯雷特尔尤其擅长调整和维护纺纱机。

　　把纺纱工业视为命脉的大英帝国在1774年发布法令，严禁纺纱机械设备出口，严禁棉花、马海毛和亚麻纺织操作人员移民，严控纺纱机械设备图纸离开英国。

　　彼时美国是世界最大的棉花产地，但本土无棉纺机械工业，只能产粗棉，地位尴尬。

　　这一切将随着头脑里装着理查德-阿克怀特“水织机”设计、操作工序的斯雷特尔的到来而改变。

　　1789年，正式就任美国第一任总统前的几个月，乔治-华盛顿在给托马斯-杰弗逊的信中写到，“获得最新机械以提升生产效率，对美国的影响将无以比拟。”

　　1791年，美国国父财政部长亚历山大-汉密尔顿在他的《制造业报告》中倡议：重赏能把“具有特别价值的创新和机密”带回美国的人。

　　到纽约后斯雷特尔被一家纺纱厂雇佣，可他很快听说罗德岛州普罗维登斯有位名叫摩西-布朗的纺纱长老板试图复制英国纺纱机，但失败了。斯雷特尔给布朗写了封信，二人成为合作者。

　　依靠记忆，斯雷特尔不但成功复制出阿克怀特的“水织机”，并对其加以改进。一年不到，1790年的12月20日美国拥有了自己的第一个以水为动力的纺纱厂。

　　到1815年，在普罗维登斯半径30英里的范围内已有140个纺纱厂，超过13万支纺锭。美国的工业革命正式开启。

　　斯雷特尔在新英格兰地区又建了几个成功的棉花纺纱厂。罗德岛州的斯雷特尔镇就以他命名。

　　美国总统安德鲁-杰克逊把斯雷特尔称为“美国制造业之父”，可在他的故乡，英国德比郡的比尔皮尔镇，他被称为“叛徒斯雷特尔”。他的太太，汉娜-威尔金森-斯雷特尔，因发明棉纺线成为美国第一位获得专利的妇女。

　　对大英帝国棉纺工业更大的打击则来自于哈佛毕业生、同样记忆力超凡的佛兰西斯-卡波特-劳威尔。

　　1807年大英帝国实施的贸易禁令严重影响美、英、法和亚洲商贸。此时劳威尔在波士顿，是一位成功的商人。

　　劳威尔深信，在本土生产商品是美国能够真正独立的唯一道路。

　　1810年7月，劳威尔和家人开始了长达两年的苏格兰和英格兰之旅，借口是恢复他糟糕的身体状况。

　　兰卡郡和苏格兰的棉纺厂主们兴高采烈向这位优雅的美国人展示他们用水或蒸汽推动的纺纱机和织布机。劳威尔偶尔问几个问题，从不做记录。

　　1812年英美战争爆发，劳威尔和家人启程返乡。对他充满怀疑的英国人将他家全部行李扣下检查，没发现任何图纸后才允许他们离境。

　　英国想要找的图纸装在劳威尔的脑袋里。

　　返回美国后，劳威尔立刻在麻省沃尔瑟姆成立波士顿机械制造公司。这是美国首家一体化纺织厂，所有操作，从粗棉到布匹，都在一座厂房内完成。

　　麻省的劳威尔市以他命名。

　　在山姆-斯雷特尔背叛前，大英帝国特许了一项“进口专利”政策：只要一项发明在大英帝国国内是新的，那应用该专利的人就并不需要是发明者本人。

　　此政策的用意显而易见：鼓励英国人把国外的新发明“顺回”大英帝国。

　　而美国1793年的专利法跟英国如出一辙：美国人可以把国外新科技顺回美国并申请专利，与此同时禁止国外的发明家获得此专利。

　　派特-乔特在他的《热门财产：全球化时代的观点剽窃》一书中写到，“通过国家政策和立法，美国成为世界首屈一指工业盗版的合法庇护所”，“任何一个美国人都可以把国外新发明带回美国并商业化，完全合法。”

　　国际知识产权法的设置要再等一百多年（当美国自己成为世界知识产权的霸主）以后了。

　　The Spies Who Launched America’s Industrial Revolution

　　On a September day in 1789, a 21-year-old named Samuel Slater boarded a ship in London bound for New York City. No one in his family knew he was leaving England, and he presented himself to his fellow travelers as a simple farm hand. In fact, he was anything but, he was a man with a remarkable memory.

　　As a 14-year-old, Slater had been apprenticed to a friend of his father's, Jedediah Strutt, who operated the Cromford Cotton Mill in Derbyshire. Derbyshire was like Silicon Valley is today, it was home to Richard Arkwright's remarkable "water frame", which spun cotton on dozens of spindles at one time. As an apprentice, Samuel Slater had been particularly adept at adjusting and maintaining this machinery.

　　A Crime to Leave the Country

　　The textile industry was so important that in 1774, the British government had criminalized both the export of textile machinery and the emigration of cotton, mohair and linen operators. The government was particularly on the lookout for technical drawings of textile machinery leaving the country.

　　At that time, America was the leading supplier of cotton to the world, but it was in the peculiar position of producing a raw product — cotton — but having no domestic textile manufacturing industry. Slater was about to change all that because in his head, he carried the design of Arkwright's machines and processes.

　　"Machines to Abridge Labor"

　　Months before taking the oath of office as the first president of the United States in 1789, George Washington wrote to Thomas Jefferson that "the introduction of the late improved machines to abridge labor, must be of almost infinite consequence to America." In his 1791 "Report on Manufactures," Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton had advocated for rewarding people who brought "improvements and secrets of extraordinary value" into the U.S.

　　Upon landing in New York, Slater hired on at a textile plant, but he soon learned of a textile manufacturer in Providence, Rhode Island named Moses Brown who had been trying to replicate the English mechanized cotton-spinning process without success. Slater wrote to him and Brown brought Slater in as a partner.

　　Working only from memory, Slater not only recreated Arkwright's machine, but he made improvements of his own. Within a year, on December 20, 1790, America had its first water-powered cotton spinning mill.

　　By 1815, within a 30-mile radius of Providence, there were an additional 140 mills operating over 130,000 spindles, and the American industrial revolution had officially begun. Slater went on to build several successful cotton mills in New England, and he established the town of Slatersville, Rhode Island.

　　American President Andrew Jackson dubbed Slater the "Father of American Manufactures," while in his hometown of Belper in Derbyshire, Slater became known as "Slater the Traitor." Slater’s wife, Hannah Wilkinson Slater, became the first woman to receive a U.S. patent for her invention of cotton sewing thread.

　　Another Man With a Remarkable Memory

　　Even more damage to the British textile manufacturing industry was done by Harvard graduate and Boston merchant Francis Cabot Lowell. Lowell was another man with a remarkable memory. He was a successful Boston merchant when the Embargo of 1807 hit, severely disrupting trade between the U.S., Great Britain, France and Asia.

　　Lowell became convinced that the only way for the U.S. to be truly independent, was for it to manufacture goods at home. In June 1810, Lowell set out on a two-year trip with his family to Scotland and England, ostensibly as a cure for his poor health.

　　Mill owners in Lancashire and Scotland were only too happy to show the elegant American their spinning and weaving machines that were operated by water or steam power. Lowell asked few questions and took no notes. When the War of 1812 began, Lowell and his family left for home, but the British were so nervous that they had all the Lowell family's personal belongings searched. When they found no plans, Lowell and his family were allowed to continue their journey.

　　The plans the British were searching for were all in Lowell's head. After arriving home, Lowell established the Boston Manufacturing Company at Waltham, Massachusetts, which was the first "integrated" textile mill in America. All operations for converting raw cotton into finished cloth were performed in one mill building. The city of Lowell, Massachusetts is named for Lowell.

　　Legalized Industrial Spying

　　Before Samuel Slater's defection, Britain had been granting what were called "patents of importation" which didn’t require the applicant to be an inventor so long as the invention was new within Britain. This encouraged the British to "steal" ideas from abroad and bring them home.

　　America did the same thing with its Patent Act of 1793. With it, the U.S. granted patents to Americans who had pirated technology from other countries, while at the same time, barring foreign inventors from receiving patents. In his book Hot Property: The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization, author Pat Choate wrote, "America thus became, by national policy and legislative act, the world’s premier legal sanctuary for industrial pirates." "Any American could bring a foreign innovation to the United States and commercialize the idea, all with total legal immunity."

　　It would take another hundred years before international intellectual property laws were created.