3D printer maker Bambu Lab faces patent infringement lawsuits that could threaten hobbyist 3D printing in general

dhhyfddehhfyy4673 , 3 hours ago

Daily reminder that IP law is fucking stupid.

Viking_Hippie , 1 hour ago

And always about protecting the hegemony of the rich and powerful. Never the struggling artist/inventor just wanting to be paid for their work as the lobbyists and the politicians they own pretend every time they want to fuck over regular people some more.

JohnDClay , 3 hours ago

US9421713B2 - Additive manufacturing method for printing three-dimensional parts with purge towers

US9592660B2 - Heated build platform and system for three-dimensional printing methods

US7555357B2 - Method for building three-dimensional objects with extrusion-based layered deposition systems

US9168698B2 - Three-dimensional printer with force detection

US10556381B2 - Three-dimensional printer with force detection

That’s like all of 3d printing, that’s pretty scary. If they win on all 5, seems like it’d kill consumer 3d printing entirely.

Schmeckinger , 2 hours ago

When I look at these patents all of them seem to be patenting others inventions from years ago. So I hope prior art wins.

MonkderVierte , 1 hour ago

Why can they even patent stuff they didn’t invent?

empireOfLove2 , 3 hours ago

Patent trolls doing patent troll things. Stratasys no longer provides usable value to the enterprise market and they’re stagnating bad, their only hope is to start suppressing competition through overly broad, unrefined patents obviously tailored to provide a blanket market lockout.

They’ve done it before and they’ll do it again. Fuck Stratasys, uncompetitive monopolistic fucks.

jabjoe , 3 hours ago

These patents seam trivial obvious ones. Hope they get knocked down during the case.

duckman , 3 hours ago

Umm… Wow… Wtf?

otter , 3 hours ago

So far, it looks like only FDM is at risk here…

refurbishedrefurbisher , 2 hours ago

Which is most of hobbyist 3D printing. Resin printing has its issues, especially with strength

TWeaK , 3 hours ago

Almost not surprising. Inventors and R&D businesses patent things all the time, then it takes a while to claim them. There was a guy in Australia who apparently invented WiFi (he calls it “wiffey”) and he successfully asserted his patent against WiFi manufacturers worldwide such that they paid him a couple pennies in royalties for every chip manufactured.

The saving grace is that patents only last for 20 years. After that, anyone can use the design, like Gillette’s double edged safety razor (which is why their modern razors are so silly and change every few years).