Brick Layers: Stronger 3D Prints TODAY - instead of 2040 (bad patent holding back progress)
Brick Layers: Stronger 3D Prints TODAY - instead of 2040 (bad patent holding back progress)
This is about a bad patent that is preventing slicers from making brick-layer prints that would increase strength enormously, despite the fact that there is clear prior art that has expired for nearly a decade. The patent is full of bad references to the prior art and clearly shouldn't have been approved - even if the person saying it isn't a lawyer, it's obvious.
The new bad patent from 2020 would keep the invention away for another 20 years, and do real harm to the development of 3d printing.
The creator asked viewers to share this with people in the FOSS slicer community. I don't know if that's anyone here, but lemmy is pretty FOSS-happy. Also the FOSS communities here might be interested to hear about how this patent is hamstringing development of FOSS features. I don't have the time right now to search through the communities so any crossposts would be welcome.
Let's host the soft in the EU or somewhere without these ridiculous laws.
Could it be developed as an add on to the main slicer software, and developed on the down low, with a big disclaimer saying it’s “just for educational purposes”.
Interesting. If they weren't patent trolls before, they certainly are now!
I wonder if this is all that's stopping this technique though? IANAL, but it sure seems like a slicer could release this and if stratasys tried to sue them, they might have a hard time given all these patent errors.
If I remember correctly the entire home 3D printing industry was held back by patents for decades. It was technically possible and feasible for much longer than we have commercially available 3D printers, but one or two businesses held all the patents and made it impossible to sell them cheap.
I'm starting to learn that patent trolling is a much bigger problem than we give it attention for.
The worst example I've heard so far is a US patent on fungi or mycelium as a plastic and styrofoam alternative. Think biking helmets or packaging material. That's almost like granting a patent for wood as a construction material. It's outrageous and seriously damaging progress across the globe because no one gets funding for something you can't sell in the US.
Being in this community has taught me that patents are stupid as fuck. Any time someone tries to bring up the topic, defending patents, I bring up how 3d printers could have been a thing when they were a kid. We were held back for 3 decades of progress because of a patent. Because of that we are essentially 3d printing like it's 1995 right now.
Without these patent trolls I truly believe we would all be able to be SLS sintering our own metal car parts at home. But instead we're still printing plastic toys
It's not Stratasys. They did the original patented work in 1996.
This is someone who in 2020, copied the Stratasys patent, submitted it as their own new work, and were granted it!
Unfortunately, the way patent suits work it could be enormously expensive to defend something like this, even when the patent is clearly bad.
You'd be arguing that the patent is invalid to start with, but the court would probably start from the position that you are actually infringing a valid patent (it was granted after all), and grant an injunction to prevent further harm ("stop giving people the software until we can work out if there is any merit to your claim that you aren't infringing"). You then need to put together a case to show the prior art, and you can bet that they'd contest every single point. This whole process could take years, and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars that you won't get back even if you win - there isn't really a provision to recover costs in patent cases because there is the assumption that every claim is made in good faith
the court would probably start from the position that you are actually infringing a valid patent (it was granted after all)...because there is the assumption that every claim is made in good faith
In other words, one big aspect of patent reform needs to be fixing the patent office itself so that it hires patent examiners who are actually competent to evaluate the applications for prior art.
Yeah, it seems like it's the fear of legal action that's stopping them, but this information might change that.
Also, I mean "bad patent" according to the standards of patents themselves. I don't actually think patents are good for anything.
Patents do provide some value. If there were no patents than companies would make their technological development a a secret and not share the work with the world.
The patent systems exchanges knowledge and technology development for a temporary monopoly on the technology. It means a company can publish the ingredients to medicines, methods of manufacturing etc. if they didn’t have the patent system they would keep these secret and if a business folded this knowledge would be lost.
Is this really a good faith argument you are making? If I could figure out how someone did something I am not allowed to do it for 30 years. They are not hiding this technology, it has been independently invented by multiple people. It is not unique enough to be able to 'hide' from society.
The second somebody makes a product available it can be reverse engineered. There are no secrets with mechanical objects or, in this case, an intuitice slicing method
And we would be free to reverse engineer and lift their stuff without people defending their right restrict us because otherwise they wouldn't make it.
The vast majority of serious innovation - not just incremental improvements like this patent represents - is done on public resources, not private. The patent system allows corporations to swoop in, monopolise the patents and keep us from free access to knowledge.