Hi All,
I have not posted before here (I don't think) but monitor the Facebook group which has some interesting stuff mentioned at times as well.
On the new Prusa hot end thread here i saw a link to a patent that had a link to a list of all the Stratasys patents. Quite a lot of them and mostly only a few years old so going to get in the way for a long time in the small player market unless they can be obviously be ignoored due to prior art.
I am not certain if the big 3D companies watch the DIY forums and wiki's but I doubt that the patent examiners spend a lot of time following all of them. However anything that has been said on a public internet blog, forum, wiki, facebook page, twitter feed or newsgroup is in the public domain. Anything that is in the public domain before the first application (priority) date of a patent disqualifies it on the basis of prior art. I also feel that in some cases informaton that is discussed in these same public forums between the priority date and when the first provisional patent documents are published could be construed as being something that is known to those who are versed in the specific art (3D printing in this case) and would also disqualify a patent if the patent examiners are aware of it.
I am not a 3D printer user just yet, though I did unwrap my heated printer beds today and hope to be printing soon. However I had a thought earlier this week and wondered why it was not something that was commonly mentioned and seemed to not be implemented. I have looked at a number of objects that allow you to see the layer change and it seems as if there is a unsighly discontinuity as the layers changes are stacked on top of each other. My idea was to place the layer joints at different points on each layer so they would show up as random dimples instead of vertically aligned ridges. The other obvious thought was to continue the shell into the infill or the inner layers without a break to minimise the start or stop. While I have not heard or seen such done it seems obvious to me and not something that requires much skill in the art.
Now from what I can guess from a VERY cursory glance at the patent listed below it looks like Stratasys has managed to patent a process (Aprin 2013) where they move the start or the end of a shell path away from the outside edge. It is connected in some way with a 2009 patent with the same name but who is to know what the priority date actually is.
Has anyone seen discussed such a thing in a public space before or is this technique lost to corporate patent protection?
Do any of the open source slicers implement such a feature to minimise the unsightly joint and can show comit dates from before that patent was applied for?
SEAM CONCEALMENT FOR THREE-DIMENSIONAL MODELS
[
www.faqs.org]
Ser. No. 12/565,397, filed on Sep. 23, 2009
Kalle
--
Johannesburg, South Africa
