
3D printing will explode in 2014 thanks to the expiration of key patents - hermanywong
http://qz.com/106483/3d-printing-will-explode-in-2014-thanks-to-the-expiration-of-key-patents/
======
karl_gluck
I'm not sure if there's a cause-effect relationship here. MakerBot was only
founded in 2009 [1], RepRap released their first project in 2007 [2] and the
project I was a part of, Fab@Home, open-sourced in 2006 [3].

I can't speak to the other projects' motivations, but I know that the fact
that patents were expiring made little to no difference on our decision to
make a printer. If you can believe it, the Fab@Home was almost an
afterthought. We had top-of-the-line commercial 3D printers in the lab, but
they didn't do the kind of custom material jobs required for the project that
Evan Malone was doing. His PhD project was to create a 100% printed-from-
scratch robot, and no technology fit the bill. So, he and Hod built one in
order to get that project done. Like the Oculus, technology had advanced to
the point that doing this was actually feasible on a shoestring budget. It
ended up being a project of its own, but it wasn't like they saw the patents
expiring and all of a sudden decided it'd be great to open-source a 3d printer
design.

With how popular 3D printers are getting nowadays, it's possible some
companies are looking to take advantage of the expiration of SLS patents, but
I wouldn't hold your breath for an open-source project. If someone was making
one, you'd know about it already.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MakerBot_Industries](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MakerBot_Industries)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RepRap_Project](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RepRap_Project)

[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fab@Home](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fab@Home)

~~~
kcorbitt
I was involved with the RepRap community in 2008-2009. The expiring Stratasys
patents for FDM (fused-deposition modeling, the squirt-out-hot-plastic
approach used by the RepRap, MakerBot and its clones) were definitely a big
deal in the community at that time. Adrian Bower, the creator of RepRap,
didn't seem to care about them much but that was because he was never
interested in making money off of the project anyway, just releasing its plans
to the world. It would be hard to sue him for infringement. But other more
commercially-minded people were definitely drawn to the opportunity afforded
by the expiring patents.

On the other hand, I agree that only relatively recently has this become
feasible to do on a shoestring budget. So there are a number of factors
involved.

~~~
throwawaykf02
Giving plans away for free would not make it any more difficult to sue
somebody for infringement. More likely, the patent holders simply didn't see
it as a threat to their business (yet) and let it slide.

~~~
ramchip
Patents aren't copyright, it's perfectly legal to publish plans or
explanations on how to build a patented device. You can even patent an
improvement on a patent you don't own.

~~~
throwawaykf02
Patents do not restrict rescues for research purposes, true. That is the one
widely acknowledged exception to infringing use. That is why you can study an
invention and then patent an improvement or novel enough variations thereof.

But distributing detailed plans (or source code, as mentioned in sibling
comment) of something that enables others to easily recreate something covered
by a patent just seems to be less clear-cut to me (IANAL).

------
ilamont
_Here’s what’s holding back 3D printing, the technology that’s supposed to
revolutionize manufacturing and countless other industries: patents._

There's something else that's holding back 3D printing: Demand.

For all of the hype about 3D printing around how empowering it is, how cheap
it's getting, and how it's going to revolutionize the world, where's the
evidence that people are going to rush out to buy these, even if prices fall
off a cliff?

~~~
khawkins
Whenever I see new 3D printers released or promoted, the main thing you see
them model are functionally useless figurines and toys. I don't see a lot of
people talking about practical applications. Although I can see its uses in
rapid prototyping, which I do a fair bit of myself, I don't see a massive
market on the horizon.

~~~
tptacek
This comment makes me want to come up with a 3D printing startup; you've
practically distilled it to the koan of the "next important technology". I
felt the same way (meaning, as you do about 3D printing) about MP3s.

The big problem I see with 3D printer products for the home is that they're
very slow. Pushing aside the fact that they won't always be slow (because
swinging too early for the market is no better than swinging too late; both
result in strikes), this is problem that can be solved at a consumer level by
retail, the same way we don't have offset printers and copy machines in our
houses but all know where to find a Kinkos.

Bear in mind that most people will never design a 3D model; most people can't
even draw, and 3D modeling is harder. But that doesn't matter, of course,
because some people can't help but 3D model things and will publish those
models to places like Thingiverse.

~~~
goldfeld
I think 3D printing will really take off when startups develop ways to make
them useful, not faster. People just don't have a good use case for them
today, if they had, they'd simply wait for the machines to slowly churn out
what they need.

For instance, when people can print out custom handset chassis and form
factors to go with easily swappable electronic internals. Custom input
devices. The printable stuff will have to integrate with electronics (or print
them anew) as to make it useful in order for it to outgrow the current market
of prototyping enthusiasts.

I'd really like though to be able to print a paperback for reading and then
tear it down in the machine when I'm done so the material can be fully reused.
That's the ebook revolution for me.

Actually, I agree with you. When 3D gets fast to the point of instantaneous
and cheap and with fully reusable material, we could have really interesting
things. Imagine a 'physical' computer. I issue some command in bash, and a
little physical representation of a file pops out from my workstation, and it
has built in sensors and input so I can interact back with my workstation by
interacting with it. I could have actual printed pseudo-ebook-readers tied up
as tabs in my web browser.

~~~
iamwil
I think you were thinking as you were typing, since you reversed your position
a bit, but faster 3D printers will make them MORE useful.

There are many things that are impractical to print as a result of how slow 3D
printers currently are. But if they were faster, then you can make things as
you need it, you can make things where you don't know what you need to pack
beforehand, and you can make disposable things on demand.

Same with computers. Many of the software we use regularly now were considered
impractical with much slower computers with smaller storage (spam filters, any
3D graphics game). By making them faster, a larger class of things were
available to be made more useful.

In the far far future (say 30-40 years), if 3D printers were fast enough with
good enough materials, some startup can make a physical dropbox. Never use
storage again. Digitize what you want to store, and recycle the object. When
you need it again, print it out.

------
yason
The same pattern has occurred since the steam engine: someone patents an
invention, development is stalled while others wait for a couple of decades,
and upon the expiration date all progress is unleashed forward.

Who still thinks that patents foster innovation?

~~~
Aldo_MX
Patents don't foster innovation. Anti-competitive behavior and ridiculous
licensing requirements/pricing does.

~~~
sarreph
Copyright extension is the foulest of all of such fosterers.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act)

------
pg
Are these patents really holding up the industry so much? Who holds them, and
what kind of royalties do they demand?

~~~
kumarski
Who holds them? (Slightly outdated)

Stratasys -506+ patents. no expirations.

Z Corp--150+ patents. I think 3d systems bought them out....

3D Systems- 930+ patents. I counted a few expirations as well.

VoxelJet- 100+ patents.

Links to relevant cases:

[http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2013/06/24/formlabs-3d-systems...](http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2013/06/24/formlabs-3d-systems-
in-settlement-talks-over-3d-printing-patent/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/18e009/3d_printi...](http://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/18e009/3d_printing_company_receives_cease_and_desist/)

[http://www.wired.com/design/2012/05/3-d-printing-patent-
law](http://www.wired.com/design/2012/05/3-d-printing-patent-law)

3D systems patent here: [http://bit.ly/15avC8e](http://bit.ly/15avC8e) 3D
systems vs formlabs and kickstarter seems to be the most popular litigation
case.

I'd be curious to know the royalties as well. The patents/companies have
prevented individuals from building/sharing files. It's not clear about
industry though.

~~~
throwawaykf02
Your reddit and wired links are about copyright litigation regarding things
made with 3D printers, not patent litigation concerning the 3D printers
themselves.

~~~
kumarski
good point. I upvoted you.

------
mortenjorck
_Virtual reality will explode in 1994 thanks to the expiration of key
patents._

(I'm glad, 20 years later, VR finally _is_ poised to take the world by storm
thanks to Oculus. And 3D printing definitely _will_ change the world in ways
we aren't even predicting once a bunch of other factors meet in a similar
way.)

------
WalterBright
A neighbor of mine restored a Mercedes luxury sedan from the 1950's. It was
perfect. I asked him what he did to get parts and odds and ends that were
surely unobtainable.

He shrugged and simply said "I made them."

He then showed me that he had a full basement and it was a fully equipped
machine shop. The guy made things like fully functional steam tractors from
scratch that you could ride on.

Anyhow, 3D printing makes it possible for much more ordinary folk to easily
make things that were formerly cost prohibitive.

------
makomk
I'm pretty sure that, despite what the article says, Formlabs' 3D printer is
based on stereolithography and not any forum of laser sintering. (Laser
sintering involves using a laser to fuse plastic granules, whereas
stereolithography uses a laser to selectively polymerise a vat of
photopolymer.) It looks like most of the 3D Systems printers are also based on
photopolymerisation rather than SLS, though they do apparently own patents in
that area.

~~~
scld
Formlabs is definitely not laser sintering.

------
marcosscriven
I think the biggest hurdle isn't the hardware - it's _designing_ things at
home. Doing this is really non-trivial. I started a website for sharing models
( [http://www.fabfabbers.com](http://www.fabfabbers.com)) - but so many have,
and now thinking I've wasted my time. I think there's more of an opportunity
in making software to make the 3D design process easier.

------
medde
Printrbot was a disaster on kickstarter, hopefully they are getting better at
on-time deliveries (the guy on the first picture of this article is the
founder of that company)... they were almost 1 year late if I remember
correctly

------
WestCoastJustin
Is this hermanywong account a prompter for qz.com? 19 of hermanywong's 31
posts are for qz.com with no comments.

~~~
hermanywong
I'm with Quartz, as another commenter below notes. I usually spend my time
here reading and posting some stories. Am working up to commenting.

~~~
yuhong
Add this to your HN about box.

~~~
hermanywong
Done!

~~~
anigbrowl
Put more please - your contact email, a brief explanation of what qz is (with
URL), and a mention that you mainly post stories from there. I am fine with
using HN for this purpose, but it should be _fully_ transparent, and you
really ought to have done this before posting anything.

~~~
hermanywong
Hey thanks for the reply and have made additions. In the long run, I'm hoping
not just to post so much of our stuff, which I do because I read them all day,
but actually contribute since I get a lot out of reading other people's
postings.

------
mtgx
Looking forward to the explosion of 3D printers that can use some kind of
liquid metal, and then make metal stuff.

~~~
WestCoastJustin
There is a YouTube video of "3D Printing of Liquid Metals at Room Temperature"
[1], posted about a month ago. There is even a paper on the topic called "3D
Printing of Free Standing Liquid Metal Microstructures" [2]. It will be pretty
cool when this can be used for printing electronics amongst other things!

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql3pXn8-sHA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql3pXn8-sHA)

[2]
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201301400/ab...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201301400/abstract)

~~~
sliverstorm
Will these techniques allow for the eventual control over things like grain
and annealing, or is this technique always going to be limited to the very
basics of metal deposition?

~~~
msds
That exact technique? Not in the least - it relies on
indium/gallium/tin/whatever alloys that are liquid at room temperature and
immediately form thick oxide skins on contact with air. Even when solidified,
they'll have mechanical properties resembling wet toilet paper!

SLS/DMLS, however, can give quite a bit of control over the grain structure.
The solidification rate of the melt-pool is generally very rapid, giving small
and homogeneous grain structure, but there can be all sorts of problems with
residual stresses in the part.

------
ohwp
The article is mixing stereolythografy and laser sintering.

When the patents of laser sintering will expire the laser scanner still has to
be very accurate. And accurate laser scanners are expensive even without
patent.

It might be different for stereolythografy. With a good beamer high
resolutions are possible.

But then there are materials. The resin used for stereolythografy is expensive
because of patents. The powder used for laser sintering is expensive because
of patents.

------
angersock
Hm, didn't know that the sintering patents were about to wear off--that's just
plum interesting.

------
Ackley
Method for selective laser sintering patent:
[https://www.google.com/patents/WO1988002677A2](https://www.google.com/patents/WO1988002677A2)
[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=4863538.PN.&OS=PN/4863538&RS=PN/4863538)

------
serverhorror
To me neither patents nor price (of the printers) are actually holding back. I
just can't search for "$product print spare part $frob" on the web and get
relevant results.

I fear nothing will change because a) there will never be relevant b)
_standardised_ results and file formats (use with any consumer printer) c)
DRMed results not any cheaper than the "real" thing. Or anu combination of
those.

~~~
iamwil
Right now, all 3D printers print from STL files. There's no standard body, as
far as I know, but there is a common file format.

~~~
forgottenpaswrd
"There's no standard body, as far as I know, but there is a common file
format."

Well, for me a file that only contains coherent triangles is the closest thing
to a standard that could be in 3D.

------
swamp40
I have to agree with lots of others here.

Reduced costs of parts and sub-assemblies combined with an abundance of open-
sourced knowledge have provided the tipping point to the recent explosion in
3D printing.

Patent worries only stifle innovation in larger established companies with
more to lose than to gain.

------
cypriend
Formlabs isn't a sls printer. Shapeways rent EOS Printers not 3D Sys' (and
that's nothing to do with their 2weeks delays...).

------
dano414
I believe every middle class home in the world will eventually have three
printers; paper, plastic, and extruded metal. The things they will produce:

1\. Toys 2\. Parts 3\. jewelry molds, then jewelry. 4\. medical devices(print
out a catheter in the middle of the night.) 5\. Eventually, electronics. 6\.
Once metal printers become better, and lower priced the race will be on. We
will read about the first mechanical watch printed on this site--then it will
be the first radio? 7\. Physibles will be a go to site?

~~~
powera
Who are these middle-class families that have such a need to manufacture their
own jewelry and catheters? If you need a catheter, wouldn't you want to talk
to a doctor first?

~~~
DanBC
People who use catheters correctly under medical supervision can sometimes run
out. Being able to print one seems like a useful function of a 3d printer.

Will printers ever be good enough to print contact lenses?

A printer good enough to print glass lenses would be useful for some areas of
the developing world.

~~~
slacka
People here need to lay off the 3D printing kool aid. The examples of useful
things that the Joneses are going to print at home is a joke. I've been
working with 3D printers for over a decade now. They are good for 1 thing
only.

PROTOTYPING

Even the $500K printers we have at work, can't compete with the quality of
mass produced injection molded parts. And some of the ideas people are talking
about like home printing medical devices, radios, and other electronics have
been watching too much Star Trek.

Over the past 10 years, the printers have gotten better, but they are not
following anything close to Moores Law in terms of speed, quality, and cost
improvements. In 2 years, we are not going to have Star Trek replicators. In
40-100, maybe. Until that time comes, home 3D printers will only be making
cheap plastic junk like figurines.

------
gambogi
201X: The Year of the Personal 3D Printer

------
kevcampb
Does this mean we should.expect a flood of novelty plastic trinkets?

