Dec.15, 2012
In October the Electronic Frontier Foundation asked for help to identify patent applications that could threaten to stifle innovation in the 3D printing community. Recently the group have found a number of patents that seem both overly-broad and dangerous to the continued innovation in open source community. EFF now need your help to find proof that "these patent applicants do not deserve the monopolies they are asking for: that what they are trying to patent was known or was obvious before the patent was filed".
What EFF needs are documents published before the filing date of each application, including Web pages, emails, journal articles, or patents. EFF has listed four patents and for each of them EFF has described the prior art they think would be most helpful.
Here's a list of the four patents:
Target 1: U.S. PATENT APP. NO. 12/976,111
PRINT HEAD ASSEMBLY FOR USE IN FUSED DEPOSITION MODELING SYSTEM
This application relates to inkjet-style removable print head cartridges used in Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) printing.
Target 2: U.S. PATENT APP. NO. 12/976,204
PRINT HEAD FOR USE IN FUSED DEPOSITION MODELING SYSTEM
This application relates to a print head cartridge with a liquefier pump assembly for use in FDM printing.
Target 3: U.S. PATENT APP. NO. 12/687,996
METHOD FOR GENERATING AND BUILDING SUPPORT STRUCTURES WITH DEPOSITION-BASED DIGITAL MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS
This application relates to a method of building up support structures layer-by-layer for 3D-printed objects.
Target 4: U.S. PATENT APP. NO. 13/043,876
BUILD MATERIALS AND APPLICATIONS THEREOF
This blandly-titled application relates to 3D printing with a material that can be cured (particularly with UV light), and also claims every object that is printed with such a method.
If you happen to find any appropriate documents for the above patents, email EFF at 3Dprinting@eff.org.
Thanks Snow for the tip!
Source: EFF
Posted in 3D Printing Technology
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It would be nice to know the date of these patents, in order to look only for older sources...
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