Patents

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Patents

Patents are granted by governments to protect the interests of those inventors that are prepared to disclose the details (in general terms) of their ideas in exchange for limited (regional and duration) protection from competition by other commercial interests.

RepRap without patents

The RepRap movement does not make use of patents. It specifically attempts to remain as open as possible. At the time is was put in motion Adrian Bowyer made the assumption that the best path for growth of a RepRap (self replicating) machine to evolve was to make keep the designs as open as possible. Once information is in the public domain it looses value in the commercial domain as it cannot be controlled to the same extent, it a way it is no longer hoard-able because it cannot be made scarce. This has and will limit the amount of commercial assistance that the RepRap movement will receive but the long term goal should eventually be reached by organic evolution even though it has to evolve around other commercial restrictions. Much like the Internet will re-route around points of failure an open hardware movement will find ways around incumbent patents.

In terms of conflict between the open RepRap movement and the protected commercial movement there is the goal to grow the open knowledge pool to be so large that the limitations placed by the commercial interests lo longer get in the way.

Patents that limit RepRap

The RepRap movement is like Minecraft, there is no exact end goal. The direction is set but will always point towards in more than one direction because there are multiple ways that a self replicating machine can be achieved. However the path has to circumvent the existing restrictions that are in place and this can only be done if the existing limitations are known.

There are hundreds of patents that relate to 3D printing and similar topics but many are too esoteric to ever impact on hobby, craft, DIY and other small-scale users. Some significant ones are going to expire and others have questionable merit that might be challenged on the basis of prior art or obviousness if there was money and interest involved.

This is a list of interesting patents that are relevant to the RepRap movement.

Pat. No. Descriptive short title Owner Valid until date
(& if renewed)
Countries covered Importance to
RepRap
Challengeable?
US5597589 A Apparatus for producing
parts by selective sintering
University of Texas SLS patent
5597520 3D Systems early 2014 SLS patent, is enforced
4575330 3D Systems Stereolithography
4863538 University of texas SLS patent

Trademarks that limit RepRap

Trademarks are also an issue but not in such a significant way as a generic term can usually be used. Trademarks have to be registered to gain maximum legal support and they have to be vigorously defended.

This is a list of interesting trademarks and registered trademarks that are relevant to the RepRap movement.

Name Descriptive short title Owner Countries covered Importance to
RepRap
Challengeable?
FDM (R) Fused deposition modelling Stratasys Use FFF instead

Interesting links