It is a fact of life that 3D printed parts from an FDM (fused deposition modeling) printer have weaknesses where the layers join. Some of this is due to voids and imperfect layer bonding, but you can — as [Geek Detour] shows us — work around some of this. In particular, it is possible to borrow techniques from brick laying to create a pattern of alternating blocks. You can check out the video below.
The idea of ‘brick layers’ with FDM prints was brought to the forefront earlier this year by [Stefan] of CNC Kitchen. Seven months after that video you still can’t find the option for these layers in any popular slicers. Why? Because of a 2020 patent filed for this technique by a 3D printing company which offers this feature in its own slicer. But is this patent even valid?
It’s no surprise that prior art already exists in the form of a 1995 Stratasys patent. The above image shows an excerpt from the 1995 Stratasys patent, covering the drawings of FDM layers, including brick layers. This covered all such ways of printing, but the patent expired in 2016. In 2019, a PrusaSlicer ticket was opened, requesting this feature. So what happened? A second patent filed in 2020 assigned to Addman Intermediate Holdings: US11331848B2.
This 2020 patent turns out to cover effectively the same claims as the Stratasys patent. Hilariously, the 2020 patent references the Stratasys patent but proceeds to give the wrong patent ID, a pattern that persists with other referenced patents in the same text, making one question who wrote (and verified) the patent.
Our guess is that the patent offices involved did not do due diligence, and this new patent is invalid. Yet until it is invalidated by a court challenge, we might have to wait until 2040 before we, too, can print brick layers with our FDM machines.
This isn’t the first time patents have blocked 3D printed innovation. Or given credit to the wrong inventor.
Both the article and the original video discuss that the 2020 patent is invalid. So how can we ensure this patent is removed? Unfortunately, it seems unless another business tries to use the “invention” claimed in the 2020 patent and then go through an expensive, tedious court procedure, this patent will stand.
Just do it from Europe, most European courts would throw out that patent very quickly if there’s prior art this clearly.
Invalidating the patent in the EU would still leave the USA patent. Unfortunately, few products have features enabled for the EU but disabled for USA as it would require some way to make sure that the software was running properly according to the jurisdiction.
Cars on the other hand, are built and exported to specific jurisdictions and can have features enabled or removed at the factory based on the local laws. https://web.archive.org/web/20220702033805/https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/06/18/headlights-us-headlight-technology-safety-lag-europe-and-canada/1475320001/
Merge it into an open source slicer or something and let them take you to court.
Patent attorney here. There are a couple of processes to invalidate US patents at the US patent office. The cheapest of these, postgrant review (PGR) costs $30,000 just in patent office fees, and then legal fees add at least the same on top. The other option, inter partes review, typically costs around $500,000 or there abouts.
So unless you feel like spending that kind of money, it’s going to stay in force.
Of course you could just ignore the patent (note, this is not legal advice!), but then you risk being sued. Even if the patent is invalid, defending a patent litigation will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars at a minimum.
The global market for 3D printers was estimated 23 billion USD in 2023 – compared to that, even 500k does not sound like a major blocking point if lacking this function is seen as a competitive disadvantage by the majority of customers – and not only by few enthusiasts that write their G-code by hand ;)
So raising awareness of the issue may help to motivate the larger printer manufacturers to go through such a process…
The patent games in this industry need to stop. I know they won’t because capitalism.
Why does capitalism have patents. Would that be corportism. In capitalism every one can do everything, it’s just up to each person to outcompete quality l, lead times or price of each other. Blocking others out of a segment destroys how capitalism works.
Before patents, a lot of innovation was locked up as trade secrets. Patents provide a temporary monopoly on a technique in exchange for disclosing it, and they give the inventors something they can sell to recoup R&D costs in the case that they don’t want to produce and market the thing themselves.
But as you note, it’s a second-best solution because it creates a monopoly. So there is this tradeoff between encouraging innovation and hurting consumers. And then you add in patent trolls, gaming the system, and all sorts of other strategic uses of patents. It gets messy.
There is some recent economic literature (2010s) investigating whether patents do good or harm to innovation, and as you’d imagine, it’s hard to measure.
Here’s a nice readable paper that sums a lot of that literature up: https://www.nber.org/papers/w21964
So have patents played out their role? Trade secrets are not really applicable when the internet is involved. Once there is a thousand people interested we can pretty much assume they know everything already, so now the patents are mostly in the way
I tossed in some literature, and there’s a ton more.
But to sum up “have patents played out their role”? I think it’s a solid maybe. Given that the role is also known to be a mixed one.
I would say that the acceleration of essentially everything in the economy leaves the length of protection a bit long at the moment. Maybe 5 years? 10? OTOH, the pharma industry will say that these lead times are too short to even get anything FDA approved.
The biggest issue with patents is the pharma companies will pstent something then just before the patent runs out they will get a new patent on judt the right handed isomer or a substitution somewhere that slightly improves the effectiveness. Then they marlet thatas a complete new drug that blows the other oit of the water when the original may have just been a racemic mixture of the two. See modafinil vs armodafinil, or even with adderall vs vyvanse which is just something that your body converts into adderall. They dont deserve another 20 years of monopoly when another conpany likely couldnt have received that patent anyway due to its derivative nature.
Capitalism is fine. Capitalism has driven innovation and competition for as long as it’s been around. Patents are fine. They protect the inventions of individuals and prevent people from just stealing your idea and running with it.
I was making (3d printing) some lawnmower blade balance adapters that I designed and selling them on eBay. Making a tidy little profit, too. Nothing extravagant, but enough to pay for the machines and have some left over. I sold maybe half a dozen or so a week. Like I said, nothing spectacular, but it was to me. Someone from overseas (whose country shall not be named) took my design, injection molded it and is selling them through different company names on Amazon. EVEN USING MY OWN UNIQUE, EASY IDENTIFIABLE PHOTOS! And Amazon cannot/will not do anything because I didn’t patent them. I couldn’t afford that process. My sales dropped to one every month or so if I’m lucky… so… the little guy loses. Again.
BUT… in this case, the tech was already patented once. It should not then be allowed to be able to be patented AGAIN by someone else once that original patent expires.
You clearly don’t understand how patents work, or why capital distorts the market even when you are directly affected by it. Do some due diligence at least.
The Chinese (just say it) philosophy is copying is ok so long as you make it better.
By switching to injection molding they made it better (different plastic, no layer lines etc) so from their point of view no harm done.
If they’re using your photos that’s a copyright issue. People often confuse copyright, patent, and trademark issues.
I do understand that. The design of the adapters was mine, though. That’s not copyright or trademark. I understand that without a patent, I can’t do anything about them selling them. But it does piss me off that I cannot get MY photos taken down. 🤷♂️
So does Patents protect the little guy?
-> you could not afford to make a patent
-> you also did not afford to make it injection molded
had it been DeWalt or whoever, they would have done both, but mainly competed on their good name.
If they’re using your photos, make a DMCA claim on the copyright you have to the photos. Amazon will take them down or face liability.
I did file a claim, but nothing ever came of it 🤷♂️
Share the website. I would love to have a target to don a white hat against, however shabby my hat is, cant hurt.
Patents are great if implemented correctly.
They should run a finite amount of time, allowing the owner to get paid for their work. Too often patents are extended or worse strung along with a series of ‘trade secrets’ necessary to make the item described by the first patent work subsequently patented as each patent expires.
Everyone stands on the shoulders of the giants that came before. After a while let the IP go to the public domain so the next generation of ideas might build on them. Otherwise progress stalls.
Patents are great if they are novel. Too often it’s just do X which people have been doing since the dawn of time but do it using a new and obvious tool. Or like in this case, flat out reproducing a prior patent.
Patents are great if they are accessible. It shouldn’t take a million dollars in lawyer fees to fight a bad patent like this one or to research existing patents and make sure your idea doesn’t infringe.
I don’t think we should eliminate patents. But we do need a total overhaul of the system. An overhaul which at least here in the US the upcoming ‘leaders’ are completely the wrong people to put in charge of so it’s best that it waits.
On the plus side for the rest of the world… when the orange turd and his team of magats tank our economy you won’t need to worry so much about selling your stuff here so our brain dead system won’t matter so much for you.
Assuming of course that you do any better.
It will save you from being sued.
WTF is a 3d printed plastic thingy doing attached to a lawnmower blade?
Your design is almost certainly trivial and a copy of something used to balance other things. (e.g. model airplane propeller balance stands).
Assuming it’s some sort of tool to balance a blade off the mower, not some bracket that will hold the blade…until it doesn’t.
I’m a small engine mechanic. I’m not an idiot. You don’t put the piece ON the mower. You use it to balance the blades. Mower balancers are cone shaped, blade holes are not circular and so do not fit correctly. My adapters corrected that. So what if it’s “trivial”? No one else had though of doing it and it was selling. Those idiotic fidget spinners are “trivial,” too and sold millions.
Not capitalism but mercantilism.
You are certainly able to do brick layers right now. When there is clear prior art, the patent is invalidated by default. A patent is nothing more than a piece of paper that can be used in court to make financial claims to the infringing party. Then, a judge will look at the infringed patent and all the prior art. Given the stuff that is out there from before the filing date of the new patent, to me at least it seems that there is no reason to not implement this feature.
While somewhat experienced in the field of patents, IANAL.
Being right and getting your right in court are two very different things. They shouldn’t be, but they are.
The question is, would they sue someone who builds this? Either the community would have to fund a court challenge, or a company would, but there is little to be gained by a company since if the patent is invalidated, everyone can do this, why they get stuck with the substantial bill.
In order to win a case in court, you first have to fight it. Which is expensive and uncertain.
What there should be is a process through the patent office where you can file prior art to invalidate a patent without going to court. You would still have to pay a filling fee, but it would be much more accessible and efficient than forcing a law suit.
Yes, that. The costs are disproportionate. Filing a patent is so much much cheaper than fighting one.
Filing a stupid patent is a trap.
The only thing it gets you is more lawyer bills.
Never ask a patent lawyer if you should patent something.
Also never do a patent search, just build the thing and start selling.
If you knew it was patented, you are liable for much higher damages.
Never willfully infringe, be willfully ignorant. Like a 21st century communist.
As I wrote above to another commenter, such a process to review a granted patent at the patent office does exist, but it also (surprise surprise) costs tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Tens of thousands, sure, Hundreds of thousands, nope.
Post grant review claims can only be filed within 9 months of issuance. The initial filing fee to challenge up to 20 claims is $12,000. For each additional claim, the fee is $250. If the petition is granted, the post-institution fee is $18,000 to challenge up to 15 claims. For each additional claim, the fee is $550
Publish it as opensource plugin, wait for a lawsuit, then invalidate the patent ?
What could be the most appropriate strategy for FOSS community to fight such a bogus patent ?
I agree that the headline is a bit of an overstatement. There is a chilling effect that may have delayed the development. At least it sufficiently delayed the parametric study [Geek Detour] conducted as he may have concluded that due to the patent claims, it would not result in open source slicer support for the principle.
I’m convinced that as the 1995 patent has expired and every claim protected under it is now public domain, the community can go ahead with the implementation (https://github.com/prusa3d/PrusaSlicer/issues/1823).
The process of invalidating the patent itself is a side quest and described here: https://www.potterclarkson.com/insights/invalidating-patents/
“it is a wise strategy to assess the risk and be ready to make the first move and invalidate a patent before the competitor attempts to enforce it against you.”
Open-source the plugin, make sure to include the description of the plugin citing Stratasys language from their patent, and cite the original 1990’s patent. Note in your open-source description that this is prior art and public domain, use a non-proprietary OSS license (Apache or MIT, either should be ok) for your plugin. If anyone is foolish enough to sue for damages, they have the burden of proof, and also the burden to prove that their own patents are somehow invalidated despite the plugin clearly demonstrating it is 100% prior art, or that your plugin was produced for any sort of financial gain. I don’t have a crystal ball, but I seriously doubt that company will ever do anything about it, because if they make too much of a stink then they risk exposing themselves and invalidating their own patent before they can sell out to a larger company.
I’ve come across a fair number of patent applications that expired because the fees were not paid. This seems to be an artifact associated with campaigns aiming at securing venture capital. What is the value of having a patent that lacks substance or innovation? It has to look good on paper just up to the point where the funding is secured.
Patent fees are noise compared to patent lawyer fees.
Home brewed patents are a waste of time.
About as useful as the engineering work of lawyers.
A single invention, properly patented, requires many patents of varying specificity (in each nation).
To specific, competition will change a detail.
To vague, prior art will be found.
You can’t do that at home and have any hope of winning eventual court cases.
VCs want IP protection, but they know patent law better than most. Ur not getting funded with a patent on fapping. (Fleshlight already has those.)
I’m surprised the Chinese haven’t just shrugged and said, “对簿公堂”
One look at this article and they will, they could care less about some goofy patent. Just won’t have it in America, and we wonder why we’re no longer the manufacturing giant we used to be.
You don’t even have to be Chinese, this patent only in the US
Slicers should have a plugin facility so Open Source addons can be used to avoid patent BS like this
CuaEngine allows for plugins to hook into the actual slicing proces: https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/discussions/15629
They do and it can, but that just shifts the liability to the open source developer. And true patent trolls won’t necessarily refrain from suing someone with no money; they make money from businesses fearing lawsuits, not the lawsuits themselves.
They may be willing to sue those with no money but would they be able to sue those with no face?
Publish it anonymously, problem solved lol.
It’s like people have forgotten all about torrents! 🤷♂️
I don’t always run random code from randos,
but when I do I’m running as root or in kernel space.
A patent has no meaning until it has been litigated, some clever coder should float this feature anonymously. Once it’s out there this patent won’t pass litigation.
It’s US11331848B2 and ADDCAAM, that’s the slicer I spent too long looking into as this article was lacking details.
Thank you, I have added those details to the article :)
How is this called “brick layers”. This is how you don’t lay brick. First it was html/css, now it’s fdm getting it wrong. Masons must be dieing inside.
Tilt your head 90°
So, how much stronger does this make prints?
Search youtube for CNC Kitchen and brick and you might find the video that goes over this.
10% (PETG) to 14% (PLA) under tension. It’s not ground-breaking, but it’s a free improvement which could also translate into weight savings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hGm6cubFVs
This is on the order of variations due to additives / pigments or changing the manufacturer (see https://www.cnckitchen.com/blog/how-the-color-of-pla-filament-influences-3d-printed-part-strength)
So it’s not nothing, and it doesn’t add weight or cost.
It doesn’t seem quite free except in material cost and weight.
Assuming a printed wall is 3 normal passes wide using conventional slicing:
In brick mode, 50% of the layers will require 4 a total extruder passes consisting of two regular-width passes, plus two more passes at 50% width.
That requires more moves, and if linear velocity is ~constant (it isn’t , but let’s pretend it is) then then these moves require additional time than conventional slicing would.
Now, sure: We don’t have to print at a constant linear velocity. We can even print at a constant volumetric speed, if we wish, which can allow these half-width lines to be printed at twice the linear velocity of a full-width line. This can serve towards eliminating the time cost.
But few FDM printers are both rigid and compensated well enough to offer equivalent motion at both 1x and 2x linear speeds, so that’s very likely to have a negative impact on print quality.
In reality, the way it seems likely to play out is this: Somewhat stronger prints, at a cost of a little bit of time and a little bit of print quality, balanced based on end-user proclivities, and with a further cost of additional materials to experimentally find the right set of parameters for any given printer/print combination.
If you are going to discuss a patent, at least give the patent number and the claims. This looks (again) as a beginner’s mistake (or bad faith) where the drawings and description are mistaken for the legal protection that is actually granted. This is no more than noise until the claims are looked at.
Did you watch the video? He goes into the claims, on top of the large number of egregious mistakes in the 2020 filing.
I’m not a lawyer, but I do wonder where the limits of patents are in general. This can also depend on location.
As far as I know, here in the Netherlands it’s perfectly legal to:
1. Take a patent, and make the thing in it for your own use.
Take a patent, go to a workshop and order them to make one for you, and pay for their materials and work.
But overall, the whole patent system is seriously sick and flawed. The vast majority of inventions simply happen by one person or another, when the time is ripe for it. Once steel wire is invented, the paperclip will be invented too. History is filled with independent discoveries and inventions of the same thing, and at nearly the same time.
Patents are also a big lottery. A patent costs around EUR10k (or USD10k) and the vast majority of patents never make any money for the inventor. The only people who are sure to make money from the patents are the patent office and the lawyers.
Patents also do not keep up with this world. 20 years for a patent is ridiculous. Patents were meant to give an inventor an opportunity to build up a head start for manufacturing something, not to completely dominate a market until the product has gone obsolete. 5 years should be plenty for that.
Another crazy example is the torx screw head. It was invented because the car industry needed a better way to drive screws for automated manufacturing. I.e. it would have been invented and used also without patents. After that, torx saw very limited use until the patents expired. Only in the last 10 or so years it’s becoming more widespread, and it is slowly pushing Philips and Pozidrive out of the market. Except maybe in Canada, which has been using Robertson since 1906. I never used them myself, but apparently they are superior to almost anything else on the market even today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertson_screw
Paulvdh said:
As far as I know, here in the Netherlands it’s perfectly legal to:
1. Take a patent, and make the thing in it for your own use.
While you are correct in regards to patents issued in the Netherlands, and while some countries do allow exemptions under specific cases ranging from personal , non commercial, or experimental use. United States Patents come with no personal use nor non commercial exemption. Exemptions are only granted for pharmaceutical research under the Hatch-Waxman exemption and a narrow scope exemption allowing otherwise patented technology to be infringed upon during research seeking to discover something unknown, test a hypothesis, or determine if something works under different conditions. Its such a narrowly accepted defense that the general consensus amongst legal advisors is almost unanimously to avoid relying upon it.
This isn’t entirely true, the common law research exemption applies to “amusement, to satisfy idle curiosity, or for strictly philosophical inquiry.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_exemption
So it seems like any open source plugin should be fine, as long as it’s not made by a commercial entity.
“amusement, to satisfy idle curiosity, or for strictly philosophical inquiry.” does not allow general utilization of patented technology for personal noncommercial use. It merely allows otherwise patented technology to be infringed upon DURING research seeking to discover something unknown, test a hypothesis, or determine if something works under different conditions.
The act of creating and distributing a plugin to allow others to utilize a patented technology is infringement whether compensated or not and would open you up to potential litigation.
i’m all for seeing novel slicer features. but i think the underlying problem is overstated. i do sometimes see a 3d print that has delaminated but it doesn’t seem to be the main failure mode. maybe it’s just because i use PLA? interlayer bonding seems pretty good, and things fail because the material eventually becomes weak in its ‘strong’ orientation as well.
i think the problem is overstated, and that is why you aren’t seeing so much effort to solve it in the slicer. i believe people would totally ignore the patent and sort it out later. you know, as a hack.
You use PLA which has the best layer adhesion out of all types of 3d printable plastics out there. No wonder you don’t see it as an issue. It becomes the worst problem you can have in 3d printing when you start printing ABS (because you want to print something for car interiors for example and need more heat resistance)
I’ve also had issues with supposedly more durable PETg — printed up a floatie filler nozzle, which has a sort of bayonet coupling, and my brother (who I’d printed it for) said the bayonet bits snapped the first time he used it.
Interestingly, the same PETg is absolutely fine on a different piece that has louvered walls. Oh hey… those louvered walls would by bricklaid by default!
Not a lawyer, or American. If this is a US only patent, then surely it can be added to slicers that are not US based? Or added as a plug-in to non-US users? I’m not sure why a US patent has to preclude the rest of the world from benefiting from this?
And include a checkbox saying “I pinky promise I’m not in the US” to the download button.
I think slicing and printing with a cross section of Figure 2 of US5653925 dated Aug. 5, 1997 would be difficult to prevent. Figures 2 and 3 of US5503785 dated Apr. 2, 1996 also show layers shifted 1/2 line being used to create an overhang. 785 does not however change the layer height of every other layer. Shifting the layers 1/2 line spacing at a 1 line height may also be considered prior art. I’m pretty sure the Stratasys Patents also discuss changing the flow rate.
We all have prints with shifted layers in them. The layers were shifted on purpose to make our objects.
Software is covered by copyright. So if one is not selling a 3D Printer with the slicer built in then how is the patent being violated? The layer height, position, velocity, and flow rate of our printers is controlled by GCode which is created by the Slicer.
I would reprogram the Slicer to make prints like Figure 2 of US5653925. And offer an option to offset layers like US5503785. Then remixes of the Slicer for specific printers could keep the options.
Totally. If you are doing if for yourself, and not selling it, then the patent means nothing.
the thickness of the material can also be adjusted by adjusting the printing speed, but the printing ribbon comes out just as fast..
what if the layers were nailed, leaving extrusion holes where the nozzle stops and fills after a few layers.. this is my concept.. proof of art.. :D
I have a feeling this doesn’t actually make the prints much stronger. Otherwise someone would have tried it and it would have gone pretty viral.
CNC kitchen did try it, and it does make prints noticeably stronger effectively for free.
Thanks that was a worthwhile read and i only read the calibration page. so far
The pictures don’t define what is patented, it’s the words in the claims. At a minimum, you have to read the claims to see what a patent covers. That being said, claim 1 is clearly directed to what is shown in Fig. 5.
According to the linked patent there are two divisional applications still pending.
For what it’s worth, it’s quite possible for interested third parties to submit relevant prior art, for free, in pending US patent applications. Perhaps, like the Google-sponsored prior art archive, hackaday users could identify pending troublesome applications and then find relevant blocking prior art.
So as far as Espacenet reports, the patent in question (US11331848B2) has no international family, i.e. the claims only cover the USA and there are no equivalent patents in other jurisdictions. That means everywhere else is fine to use the method as far as I can tell. They didn’t even appear to file for international priority (denoted by a WO in front of the application), which could have enabled filing for later protections outside of the USA.
Source: Not a lawyer, but a former patent examiner who knew the international patenting system in quite a bit of depth.
Espacenet search: https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/075973635/publication/US11331848B2?q=US11331848B2
Thank you for that information and insight. It’s interesting that this (clearly flawed) patent was filed only in the US with no eye on other markets. At least that should mean that it’s clear to use this method everywhere else without getting a nasty letter.
I shall patent car wheels.
I always wondered, since we switched to first to file what would happen if you were to request a patent on running a patent office, then turn around and sue US PTO for infringing the patent they just granted you.
The obvious (/s for sarcasm) response is to file an Ex parte reexamination for as far as I can tell a non-refundable $3000 (the smallest amount available aside from the patent owner) to have the Central Reexamination unit look at a submission of proof of prior art since the submission office didn’t do its job. I suspect the fee is to prevent frivolous challenges, but if you’re doing the patent offices research for them, you should get it back.
Reexamination Unit:
https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/organizational-offices/office-commissioner-patents/central-reexamination-unit
Imo code shouldn’t be patentable. Code is not a physical innovation. Also, it should be allowed to use the patented idea in a DIY form and not get sued. This would mean that both patents should have never happened because a DIY use would be impossible and it’s done using mainly just extra code to get the desired result.
This can be done now in one of the slicers I use. It is not spelled out but can be done with little effort of manipulation of the settings. It does make slightly stronger parts but is it worth it to get about 10% more strength…. Not really.
It got “just” 10% in the only test Stefan/CNC Kitchen did, with lots of space between the lines. He just made an initial testing. I BET we can get close to 30% increase if properly dialled in. It is worth working on.