Stratasys patent?

Hello all! My first post here

We have a Stratasys dimension 3d-printer at my work and I

Patents are only to do with commercial exploitation AFAIK, so it is completely legal to make any patented item yourself for your own use. You can even disseminate such items as long as you do not sell them.

The interesting thing with a RepRap is that you could even go as far as making print files for patented items so that people with a RepRap (or any other similar technology) can print these items themselves at home and you and they are not breaking any patent laws.

If you want to get really sneaky, you should even be able to sell these print files, in the same way as companies charge for doing a patent search, without breaking any laws along the way as the patent law only applies to the selling of the defined object, commercial exploitation of the defined business method or selling software with the defined process/application/look&feel (The software and business methods stuff only seems to apply strongly in the US and anywhere else with a legal system that has taken too many psychoactive chemicals), not the data that defines it. You can even own the copyright on a printfile you have made of someone elses patented item, as long as it is not identical to any drawings or objects that the person submitted in their patent application.

So, as said in the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson - "Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
link to his complete letter on the subject - [odur.let.rug.nl] - I'd recommend that people read it, cos it's damn good and very applicable...

Can you even imagine any US president saying such a thing today... (or indeed most other ruling politicians for that matter)

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*disclaimer* please check the law yourself before following my advice on this matter cos it changes all the time & I am not a lawyer, plus I might have dreamt it...

Thanks for your interesting reply deadgenome!

I saw one patent that Stratasys hade, and it involved how to integrate silicone in the ABS-plastic to make it flow better in the nozzle.

But I have hard to understand how a simple method as "extruding plastic in layers on a router-table" could even be possible to patent? It would be like assigning for a patent for drilling in general or even worse how to put holes i things?

Then I

Patents should be non-obvious, but obviousness is a tricky thing to define. Furthermore, just because something is simple, and seems to obvious *in retrospect*, doesn't mean that it didn't require an intuitive leap for someone to create the thing in the first place.

You'll probably find a lot of patents on drilling, as it happens... mining, tunelling and oil drilling are big business, and making better drills for the puprose is certainly non-trivial!

Similarly, you'll not see a patent on rapid prototyping in general (nor on replicting machinery), but that doesn't mean you won't see many patents regarding specific tricks and techniques.

the other problem is that something thqat seems non-obvious to a clerk in a patent office (unless they happen to be einstien) is often absurdly obvious to anyone working in the field, which is how we end up with ridiculous situations like Amazon's 1-click patent - [cse.stanford.edu]

I've been wondering since then if I could get a patent for 1-click patenting...

So if you wanted to commercialize the reprap you'd have to get a license from Stratasys?

Or do it in a country that isn't with the WTO, or wait patiently for the stratasys patent to expire. Shouldn't take too long...