The Patents That Threaten 3-D Printing

An anonymous reader writes "We've watched patents slow down the smartphone and tablet markets. We've seen patent claims thrown against Linux, Android, and countless other software projects. Now, as 3-D printing becomes more capable and more affordable, it seems a number of patents threaten to do the same to the hobbyist and tinkerer crowd. Wired has highlighted some of the most dangerous ones, including: a patent on soluble print materials that support a structure while it's being printed; a ridiculously broad patent on distributed rapid prototyping, which could affect "every 3-D printing service that has launched in the past few years"; and an 18-year-old patent on 3-D printing using a powder and a binding material, held by MIT."

Comments

Re:World dev. shifting to Asia due to patent lawye

[DNS-and-BIND]

No, because China only copies others. A slowdown in Western innovation due to patents will not result in relocation. There just won't be much innovation.

Re:How have patents helped the world lately?

[famebait]

Wrong.
There is no such thing as a natural ownership of any kind of knowledge.

Patents and other intellectual rights are articifical limitations on personal freedom, devised and enforced by societies in order to acheive specififc aims. From the start of patents and until this day, "to promote progress" is the rhetoric used in order to justify the otherwise draconian measure of punishing people for using what they know.

It is not obvious that this tradeoff is a good one for all times and all societies. Similarly, a society is not bound by the self-imposed limitations of any another, unless it agrees to be.