3DPrinting

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3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.

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Brick Layers: Stronger 3D Prints TODAY - instead of 2040 (bad patent holding back progress) (youtu.be)

submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by [email protected] to c/3dprinting

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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.

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[–] CosmoNova 57 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] 4lan 10 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

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