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Form1 3D Printer and Kickstarter Get Sued For Patent Infringment

Posted by Unknown on from the thus-began-the-printing-wars dept.

An anonymous reader writes "3D Systems, one of the big fish in 3D printer manufacturing, filed a suit against Formlabs's hugely popular Form1 printer put forth on Kickstarter. The crowdfunding effort has amassed close to 3M US Dollars, of an initial 100K requested. 3D Systems accuses Formlabs and Kickstarter of knowingly infringing one of its still valid blanket patents on stereolithography and cross-sectional printing of 3D objects. The company is probably going to go for the kill, as one can deduce from the demands on their complaint." In "The State of Community Fabrication" presentation at HOPE9, Far McKon noted that no one had yet filed a patent lawsuit against a 3D printing company, but it looks like his fears have come true.

5 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Don't innovate, litigate! by Andrio · · Score: 5, Insightful

    After all, why take time and energy creating better products when you can just set your lawyers on the competition.

    These startups must me punished for their hubris.

    --
    The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
    1. Re:Don't innovate, litigate! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While I don't approve of the patent litigation, it's not fair to characterize 3D Systems as a patent troll. They do spend plenty of time and energy (and money) creating better products, as they did to create their existing products.

    2. Re:Don't innovate, litigate! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, it's pretty fair to characterize 3D Systems as a patent troll. The Form 1 kickstarter received considerably more press *before it was completed* than their patent ever did, and they claim in their legal filing that the press they did receive was sufficient that both Form 1 (who is actually in the 3D printer field) AND Kickstarter (who is not) should have known everything about said patent due to it's coverage in a single blog posting online. If a single blog posting online is sufficient for persons and groups uninvolved in the field to be legally expected to be fully aware of all details of the relevant patent and it's ownership, then the coverage Form 1's project received _well in advance of completion_ would be sufficient that 3D Systems should be legally expected to have known about it, and been aware that all that was required of them to prevent any violation of their patent was communicating with Kickstarter and informing them of said patent violation, which is against Kickstarter's terms, and would have resulted in the termination of the project before any infringement could occur.

      Instead, 3D Systems willfully allowed said project to go to completion, rather than stopping it before it became a violation, and therefore if the same level of expectation of awareness their lawyers place upon Kickstarter is placed upon them, they are in fact the ones responsible for said infringement, by virtue of knowingly allowing it to proceed.

      In all likelyhood, they decided there was more money to be gained from suing a successful project in an attempt to "claim" the funds collected without having to produce any product for it (as well as "treble damages, which would likely in their minds constitute considerably more than three times the collected project funds). Therefore, yes, they are in fact patent trolls.

  2. Re:Looks like a legit patent. by PurpleCarrot · · Score: 5, Informative

    You may not have read the patent carefully enough (or gotten past the 80-ish pages of drawings). What the patent is actual claiming is a way of getting higher resolution out of stereolithographic materials by blending cross-sectional layers that have a resolution greater than that of the material. By using the claimed method of blending those layers and varying the cure exposure times in just the right way, you can get thinner (higher-resolution) cross-sectional layers than the material, if cured using normal layer-by-layer techniques, would get alone.

    It was a novel and non-obvious advance in stereolithographic techniques.

  3. 3D systems = 3d printing microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    To be honest, 3d systems is the microsoft of the 3d printing community, they've been buying everybody out, even the small guys who make diy printers, and buying up all the patents. I'm going to guess that Formlabs refused to be bought up into 3D systems borganism, so they're suing them.

    3d systems also does other evil things like charging lots for ink(should I call it toner instead?) and punish you if you use any ink that isn't from them. This is especially troublesome when you're using specialty inks to make real parts where you need special properties like fire resistance, something that 3d systems more often than not doesn't offer. Lately they've been trying to push this new cartridge system that uses RFID to make sure you're only using their cartridges. Luckily, it's not catching on.

    3d systems is universally hated by all in the 3d printing community.