Category: Main

Trade Secrets – 3D Printers can actually help PREVENT counterfeiting!

A story at Entrepreneur details how low-cost 3D printers are helping small businesses prototype their new products and become more competitive. But what’s really cool is this section which runs contrary to the popular view that 3D printers are nothing…

3D Printing Patents Expire – RepRap Moves In

If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll know that I’m a bit obsessed with answering the “why now?” question regarding 3D printing, particularly framing the current state of the industry in the context of expiring patents (see here, and here).…

Not the final word on 3D printing guns

“3D printing is a terrible technology for the working components of a gun. There is no tensile strength. It would blow up in your face. You can buy guns in Walmart — they are not a scarce product. And if…

Smooth Moves: How to Avoid Getting Blocked (by 3D Printing Patents)

3D printing, in particular the low-cost kind, often means accepting the fact that your printed parts are often going to look kind of rough, with perceptible lines/bumps marking each layer that was printed to form the object. Smoothing is one…

Is Off-Patent, Low-Cost 3D Printing Competition SLOWING Innovation?

There’s a post on 3ders today about how 3D printing impacts shoemakers Reebok and Puma. The general point of the post is that shoe manufacturers have been using 3D printing for a long time. But there’s a particularly interesting quote…

Prizes vs. Patents: 83-Year-Old Wins $40k for Low-Cost 3D Printing Solution

There’s an amazing story at Time about an 83-year-old inventor named Hugh Lyman who entered a Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation-affiliated entrepreneurial competition called the Desktop Factory Competition. The problem that Lyman set out to solve is the high cost of…

3D Printing Law: Trademarks – Why “FDM” isn’t for Everybody

In an earlier post, I explained why the expiry of patents related to Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), initially patented by S. Scott Crump of Stratasys Inc. has helped lead to the recent explosion of 3D printers using that technology. So…

3D Print a Healthier You: Episode I – Diagnostics & Demonstrations

There is another medical revolution in the making besides printing your own drugs. Surgical procedures stand to benefit early from all of the advances in 3D printing. From diagnostics to replacement “parts,” highly personalized small-scale manufacturing lends itself perfectly to…

in the future, your drug dealer will be a printer

Scoring drugs is one of life’s great pains in the ass. […] But don’t worry, it won’t always be this way. Scientists are working on a solution. That solution is 3D printed drugs. Instead of having to go and get…

International Differences in the Legal Treatment of 3D Printing – Design Protections

Last week, three lawyers from the Irish law firm Arthur Cox wrote a great piece on the intellectual property law implications of 3D printing – from an Irish law perspective. But what stood out for me when reading this article…