5 ms·
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 u
by kcorbitt 13y ago
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 13y agoGiving 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.
- Peaker 13y agoGiving plans is somewhat similar to quoting the patent itself. Both should be completely legal, shouldn't they?
- throwawaykf02 13y agoWould think so, but IANAL and I'm not sure about the legality of it. Infringement occurs whenever you make, sell or use the invention without license. Distributing plans seems like it would contribute to infringement, so some enterprising lawyer could make a case for it. It's like linking to infringing copyrighted content. I recall a story about a guy who blogged about coding up a shazaam clone and then receiving a C&D from the patent owner. It was never settled whether he had any grounds to do so, but sending C&Ds is cheap and mostly consequence-free.
- ramchip 13y agoPatents 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.
- DanWaterworth 13y agoHow does this work with software? Does source code qualify as, just plans?
- throwawaykf02 13y agoPatents 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).