上周五，苹果（Apple）在与三星（Samsung）的专利诉讼中再下一城，赢得10亿多美元罚金。三星在法庭上败下阵来的同时，它身后一个庞然的靶子也显露出来，这就是谷歌（Goole）。

    毕竟，谷歌工程师直接参与开发了至少一部侵犯苹果专利的手机（Nexus S），而且，每一部被指控的设备都运行着谷歌Android系统。史蒂夫•乔布斯早在两年前就宣称要摧毁“这个偷来的产品”。

    那么，为什么苹果不直接起诉谷歌？

    问得好。很明显，苹果的策略是先从Android硬件制造商入手而非软件平台开发商，先是宏达电（HTC），然后是摩托罗拉（Motorola），现在是三星。

    回过头来看，这是很明智的决定。就像苹果上周二向陪审团做结案陈词时所阐述的，三星的故事很容易说清楚。一方面是因为这家韩国制造商从设计到包装，几乎无处不在模仿苹果，另一方面是因为有文件表明，三星仔细查看了iPhone触摸屏的每个特性，以借鉴苹果的设计决策来改进自己的产品。

    “铁证如山！”苹果首席执行官蒂姆•库克在法院判决后向员工表。，“三星的剽窃行为比我们想像的严重得多。”

    There was an elephant in the courtroom when Apple (AAPL) won its billion-dollar patent infringement awardagainst Samsung Friday, and its name is Google (GOOG).

    After all, Google engineers were directly involved in developing at least one of the phones (the Nexus S) found to have infringed Apple's patents, and every one of the accused devices was running Google's Android operating system -- the "stolen product" Steve Jobs had promised two years earlier to destroy.

    So why hasn't Apple sued Google directly?

    That's a good question. Clearly Apple made a strategic decision early on to go after the manufacturers of Android hardware -- first HTC, then Motorola, and finally Samsung -- rather than the company that designed their software platform.

    In retrospect, it was smart move. As Apple laid out its narrative for the jury in its closing arguments Tuesday, the Samsung story was an easy one to tell. Not only had the Korean manufacturer imitated Apple's designs down to the boxes the devices came in, but it left a paper trail that showed the company scrutinizing every aspect of the iPhone touchscreen for ways Apple's design decisions could improve Samsung's products.

    "The mountain of evidence presented during the trial," Apple CEO Tim Cook told employeesafter the verdict, "showed that Samsung's copying went far deeper than we knew."

    不过，谷歌可不一定有这么一份可做为陈堂证供的报告。而且，谷歌还能借鉴之前与甲骨文（Oracle）打官司时的经验，辩称Android没有给自己带来一分钱直接收益，因此给苹果造成的伤害为零。Android或许给谷歌带来了数十亿美元的广告收入，不过很难指望陪审团能认识到这点。

    专利网站FOSS Patents的弗洛里安•穆勒称：“这完全是策略问题。苹果完全没有理由害怕与谷歌直接对簿公堂。不过从策略上考虑，打掉其它设备制造商要更容易些。”

    而此时此刻，苹果法律团队还有得忙呢。周五取得巨大胜利后，它首要的任务是提请对三星所有侵权设备颁布初步销售禁令。相关听证会将在9月20日举行。苹果还可能重新主张此前为了简化诉讼而撤下的专利。此外，苹果曾在去年1月就另外四项专利对三星提起过诉讼。现在，苹果可能要求法官加速审理这项诉讼。根据穆勒的说法，其中某些专利的杀伤力甚至比刚刚判决的更强大。

    全球范围内，苹果与三星悬而未决的诉讼官司有几十起之多，这还不包括苹果对宏达电与摩托罗拉移动的讼诉，后者目前已成为谷歌的全资子公司。

    穆勒称：“苹果利用专利打击其它设备制造商的策略已经开始奏效。所以，苹果可能会继续坚持该策略。下一个目标可能是摩托罗拉移动，接下来，苹果可能会直接面对摩托罗拉的母公司（谷歌）。”

    不过，穆勒补充道：“如果我是苹果，下一个诉讼目标不会选择谷歌，而是亚马逊（Amazon）。相比谷歌，亚马逊的专利组合更脆弱。而且，亚马逊使用‘以补贴为中心’的营销模式大量销售Android设备，比起谷歌基于广告的营销模式，亚马逊对苹果的威胁更大。”

    好吧，亚马逊。我确实没想到它也会中枪。

    译者：项航

    Whether Google left a similar paper trail remains to be seen. Moreover, Google can claim, as it did when it was sued by Oracle, that Android doesn't produce any direct revenue for the company, so there can be zero damages. Android may generate billions of ad dollars, but that's a harder story to sell a jury.

    "It's all about tactics," says FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller. "There's no reason Apple would have to be afraid of suing Google directly. It's just tactically more convenient to go against other device makers."

    Meanwhile, Apple's legal team has plenty on its plate. One of its first tasks after Friday's big win is to ask for preliminary injunctions that would ban the sale of all of Samsung's infringing devices. A hearing for that request has been scheduled for Sept. 20. Apple may also want to reassert the patents it withdrew to streamline the case and ask the judge to speed up a second suit it filed against Samsung last January that asserts four more patents -- some of which, according to Mueller, are even more powerful than the ones it just won with.

    There are dozens of Apple v. Samsung cases around the world yet to be decided, not to mention pending suits against HTC and Motorola Mobility, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Google.

    "Apple's strategy of enforcing patents against other device makers is starting to work out, so it may stay the course," says Mueller. "It could step up its enforcement against Motorola Mobility and later go against Motorola's parent company directly."

    But, he adds, "If I were in Apple's shoes the next company I would sue is not Google, but Amazon, which has an even weaker patent portfolio than Google and sells large volumes of Android-based devices with a subsidies-centric revenue model, which is even more of a threat to Apple's margins than Google's advertising-based model."

    Amazon (AMZN). That's an elephant I hadn't even considered.