Slashdot Mirror
How 3D Printers Went Mainstream After Decades In Obscurity
An anonymous reader writes: By now, everyone knows the likes of MakerBot, Bre Pettis, and the gun-printing cage rattlers at Defense Distributed. But the tale of 3D-printing goes all the way back to the heady pre-Macintosh days of 1983, and a simple plastic cup holds the distinction of being the first-ever 3D-printed object. Garage entrepreneur Chuck Hull managed to print it using cobbled-together hardware that looked like something out of Waterworld, laying the fragile plastic framework for everything to come. From retrofitted hot glue guns, to a machine made specifically to print on-demand shot glasses, the last 30 years in 3D printing have been full of strange twists, odd characters and melted failures. And the possibilities are just beginning to emerge now that anyone can play.
Except no ONE person invented it. 3D printing was the result of a lot of researchers working on a lot of parts, and when the dust settled, none of them could build a really practical printer without paying off all the other patent holders, most of whom were playing dog-in-the-manger with their patents while trying to elbow out the competition.
Anybody remember that scene in "A Beautiful Mind" where Nash points out that if everybody goes after the beautiful girl they block each other and nobody gets the girl? Patents on complicated devices are like that. Everybody ends up blocking everybody else and nobody can do much with the technology until the patents expire.