9 ms·
3D printing will explode in 2014 thanks to the expiration of key patents
- WestCoastJustin 13y agoIs this hermanywong account a prompter for qz.com? 19 of hermanywong's 31 posts are for qz.com with no comments.
- cschmidt 13y agoHe's the social media editor for qz.com. https://twitter.com/hermanywong https://twitter.com/hermanywong
- hermanywong 13y agoI'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 13y agoAdd this to your HN about box.
- hermanywong 13y agoDone!
- anigbrowl 13y agoPut 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 13y agoHey 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.
- salgernon 13y agoAnnoyance: on an iPhone the mobile site has some sort of custom scrolling hysteresis which makes it behave differently from any other mobile site. The difference is enough to make the site unpleasant to use.
- hermanywong 13y agoThanks for the feedback. Our engineering team is actually really good about hearing people out seeing what can be done. The head of that team is @donohoe on Twitter. Also, they have a tumblr that explains the choices they've made: http://open.qz.com/ http://open.qz.com/ I'll also forward along your comments.
- angersock 13y agoHm, didn't know that the sintering patents were about to wear off--that's just plum interesting.
- medde 13y agoPrintrbot 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
- karl_gluck 13y agoI'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 13y agoI 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 13y ago
- mtgx 13y agoLooking forward to the explosion of 3D printers that can use some kind of liquid metal, and then make metal stuff.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoWell then, your wait is nearly over. Although it isn't liquid metal, its powdered metal. Laser sintering is a process whereby you take a material in powdered form, lay down a layer, and then have a laser heat it to malting at specific places (that is the sintering part). Then you lower and the platform and repeat. There was a hobbyist sugar sintering printer which used a heated element to fuse sugar. Not as sturdy as metal but you can eat it :-). Given the explosion of cheap Chinese made laser cutters on Ebay I'm sure they will be all over this new market. Most of the parts already exist in the form of a laser cutter anyway.
- WestCoastJustin 13y agoThere 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/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201301400/ab...
- sliverstorm 13y agoWill 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 13y agoThat 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.
- yason 13y agoThe 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 13y agoPatents don't foster innovation. Anti-competitive behavior and ridiculous licensing requirements/pricing does.
- sarreph 13y agoCopyright 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
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- throwawaykf02 13y agoThe story of patents holding up steam is a myth, one that I believe was more recently spread by Boldrin & Levine's "Against Intellectual Monopoly" book. Here is a paper comprehensively busting that myth: http://terry.uga.edu/~jlturner/StrongSteamApril2009.pdf http://terry.uga.edu/~jlturner/StrongSteamApril2009.pdf. TLDR: Steam did take off after Watt's patents expired, but there is no causality because his patents claimed the condenser, which works in the exact opposite manner as the "expansive" use of high pressure steam. High-pressure steam languished initially because it was extremely risky. Ironically, Watt's patents probably encouraged work on high pressure steam because his rivals wanted to work around them. However, it is a really well-written paper that provides fascinating insight into the technological atmosphere of that era, and I highly recommend reading it. BTW, here's another paper from the same authors calling out Boldrin & Levine for further fabricating history when the above paper was bought to their attention: http://terry.uga.edu/~jlturner/WattAgainAug2009.pdf http://terry.uga.edu/~jlturner/WattAgainAug2009.pdf
- ilamont 13y agoHere’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 13y agoWhenever 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 13y agoThis 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 13y agoI 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.
- serverhorror 13y agoTo 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 13y agoRight 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 13y ago"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.
- anigbrowl 13y agoProbably because nobody other than a narrow subset of the nerd community uses the word 'frob' or expects anyone else to search on it. At least one firm has already decided it's cheaper to give away schematics for certain parts than to manufacture and ship them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4568043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4568043
- makomk 13y agoI'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 13y agoFormlabs is definitely not laser sintering.
- dano414 13y agoI 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 13y agoWho 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 13y agoPeople 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 13y agoPeople 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.
- 13y ago
- pg 13y agoAre these patents really holding up the industry so much? Who holds them, and what kind of royalties do they demand?
- andrewcooke 13y ago3D systems hold them, according to the article. it also seems to imply that they only licenced to others under pressure from a court.
- kumarski 13y agoWho 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-in-settlement-talks-over-3d-printing-patent/ http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2013/06/24/formlabs-3d-systems... http://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/18e009/3d_printing_company_receives_cease_and_desist/ http://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/18e009/3d_printi... 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 13y agoYour reddit and wired links are about copyright litigation regarding things made with 3D printers, not patent litigation concerning the 3D printers themselves.
- kumarski 13y agogood point. I upvoted you.
- deleted 13y ago
- gambogi 13y ago201X: The Year of the Personal 3D Printer
- swamp40 13y agoI 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.
- mortenjorck 13y agoVirtual 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.)
- cypriend 13y agoFormlabs isn't a sls printer. Shapeways rent EOS Printers not 3D Sys' (and that's nothing to do with their 2weeks delays...).
- WalterBright 13y agoA 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.
- ohwp 13y agoThe 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.
- marcosscriven 13y agoI 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.
- kevcampb 13y agoDoes this mean we should.expect a flood of novelty plastic trinkets?
- Ackley 13y agoMethod 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=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 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...