From: Benjamine Medeville
Date: December 1st, 2014
Topic: 3D printers and their relation to IP
3D printing was first developed in the 1980s. Indeed, Chuck Hull invented the process of stereolithography in 1984 in which layers are added by curing photopolymers with UV lasers. The main patent protecting a specific type of 3D printer expired beginning of February 2014 which allowed a decrease in costs and allowed the general public to have access to this revolutionary technology for an average price of USD1,500 (printers range from just under USD1,000 to over USD3,000). The mainstream 3D printer will read computer-aided design (CAD), similar to a blueprint, and build the object layer by layer out of a given material – usually plastic or metal. This newly spread invention allows the general public to have an easier and cheaper access to a multitude of objects ranging from fashion items like rings or necklaces to more technical ones like a computer fan cooler. Its reduction in the costs of designing, manufacturing and distributing is what made it so appealing to the general public. It also permits people to customize and/or build unique objects. However, the booming number of users has made different issues arose, particularly with regards to the intellectual property (IP) field.
According to Ben Depoorter, “3D printing makes the infringement of IP rights cheaper and more attractive”. Naturally, apart from designing original products, users are likely to print items protected by IP rights without authorization; whether it is intentional or unintentional, it still amounts to infringement of IP rights. Blueprints for such products are easily found for free online. Those infringements are mainly related to trademark, copyright and patent. Undeniably, the sale of a trademarked product might infringes the rights of a trademark owner; and like many counterfeit product, 3D printing users might just reproduce the object without a logo to counter such infringement. With regards to copyright, the issue lays in the design of the product itself. 3D printing enables personal manufacturing of copyrighted objects in the home which makes it undetectable, thus hard to control and prevent. Copyright protects the artistic aspect of a product and not its usefulness. Depoorter used in his article the example of a coat hanger. Despite from being useful, the coat hanger could also be subject to copyright law if it has decorative elements such as colorful drawing, specific designs etc. The functional aspect of an object is subject to patent regulation and reproducing it will be an infringement on such law. We can use the example of a cellphone stand to highlight the different IP infringements that can be present when 3D printing it. If someone creates a design for a unique cellphone stand and shares it on a platform like Thingiverse.com, no IP issue arises. However, if that person creates a blueprint design for an existing item (or with an existing trademark) then shares it on the platform, which in turn allows users to 3D print the item; it creates an IP law infringement. Indeed, even if the object does not exist but its aspects include marks of a trademarked brand, it is infringing trademark regulations. This was the case when a fan of the HBO TV show Games of Thrones built a stand representing the series’ famous Iron Throne.
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