If you were unfamiliar with the world of patents before reading the April 16 post on Desktop Engineering, “EFF Challenges Six 3D Printing Related Applications”  you would think the patent system was a hindrance to, rather than a catalyst for, innovation and a potential threat to the growing additive manufacturing industry.  To the contrary, while not perfect, the US patent system continues to serve as an effective means for protecting and incentivizing innovation and will help additive manufacturing to grow to its fullest potential. Continue reading →

With the increasing popularity of 3d printing, it is almost inevitable that the technology will have legal growing pains similar to those of other technologies.  However, unlike digital music and movies, the products of 3D printing could be subject to not only copyright law, but also patent law.  In this series, we will provide an overview of the intellectual property laws that can apply to this technology and the likely hurdles the industry will face. Continue reading →

Picture courtesy of Defense Dist. (http://defensedistributed.com/)

I was having a conversation with my mother-in-law and wife a couple of weeks ago over lunch and was shocked my wife’s mom had never heard of 3D printing. I started off by describing prototyping and other standard applications, but then talked about some of the current events in the space like printing guns. Continue reading →