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Patents on the 3d printer


3d Printer Patents | UpCounsel 2023

Technologies and inventions that facilitate the 3D printing process are legally protected from the use of others by 3D printer patents.3 min read

1. 3D Printer Patents
2. More 3D Printing Patents Expiring
3. How Expiring Patents Are Ushering in the Next Generation of 3D Printing

Updated November 24, 2020:

3D Printer Patents

Technologies and inventions that facilitate the 3D printing process are legally protected from the use of others by 3D printer patents. Within the past few years, controversy arose about the simultaneous expiration of many critical 3D printing patents. 

Opponents spoke out against the conventional idea that patents create competition by forcing others to invent workarounds for protected inventions and intellectual property. They argued that 3D printing patents prevent innovation since companies and individuals may avoid creating similar technologies and investing in research and development in the 3D printing industry for fear of being sued. They believe that this may have hurt the progress of this technology by barring new players from entering the market, reducing competition, and inflating prices.

Between 2013 and 2015, patent protection expired for several nascent 3D printing inventions. While new 3D printers based on these technologies have been created by several different companies since 2015, it is unclear whether this occurred as a direct result of the end date of these patents. 

In 2016, the first product by new 3D printing company Carbon was announced. This creation, the Carbon M1, takes advantage of the company's Continuous Liquid Interface Product, or CLIP, which some believe is a derivative of an early VPP 3D printing patent. However, the two patent applications filed for CLIP at the end of 2014 indicate that this is not the case. Since PBF patents expired, new companies have begun to offer low-cost versions of this type of 3D printer, but again, whether this directly resulted from the patent expiration is unclear. Two of these companies are Sinterit and Norge Systems. 

In 2014, Norge Systems began an ultimately unsuccessful fundraising campaign via the online community Kickstarter for two affordable home PBF printer models. After the failure of this campaign, the company was bought out by another company and never released a consumer-grade 3D printer. Sinterit recently released an affordable 3D printer called Lisa, but it is unclear as of yet whether this product will ultimately be a commercial success. 

More 3D Printing Patents Expiring

The following 3D printing patents will expire within the next few years, listed in order of the soonest expiration date. 

  • A McAlea patent for a process for 3D fabrication that involves repeatedly dispensing and fusing layers of powder that consists of spherical particles.
  • A Lohner and Wilkening patent for an apparatus that can 3D print objects using radiation. The invention has a removable base that facilitates faster creation time for 3D prototypes.
  • A patent granted to Russell for an apparatus that can 3D print from a stored memory. 
  • A Batchelder patent for a prototyping method for predetermined 3D shapes. It uses a thermal substance that becomes solid at a specific temperature. 
  • A patent granted to Manning for apparatuses and methods for laser sintering. The invention includes a powder spreading system that layers the substance onto a surface and a laser with a scanner that is used to direct the beam of light along a vector.
  • A patent granted to Meiners for a manufacturing procedure that can be used for any molded body, including a product prototype or component, tool prototype, or spare part. It uses 3D CAD data to deposit metallic powder in layers to create the desired object. 
  • A Swanson et al. patent for a thin-wall tube liquefier. This invention uses an extruder to deposit layers of a solidifying material that can be used to create 3D objects.

How Expiring Patents Are Ushering in the Next Generation of 3D Printing

2016 has seen more 3D printing innovation than ever before. Although it's not yet clear whether this will be the next industrial revolution, we do know that we can expect the price of 3D printing to drop as the quality of the objects created increases. This development is directly related to the new accessibility of existing technologies as the patents for these 3D printing innovations expire. The companies who owned these original patents no longer have a monopoly on the 3D printer industry.

As with similar technologies, the new wave of 3D printing innovation is traveling from industry to the consumer and retail sectors. This wave includes metal, powder, and liquid-based methods for 3D printing. 

If you need help with 3D printer patents, you can post your legal need on UpCounsel's marketplace. UpCounsel accepts only the top 5 percent of lawyers to its site. Lawyers on UpCounsel come from law schools such as Harvard Law and Yale Law and average 14 years of legal experience, including work with or on behalf of companies like Google, Menlo Ventures, and Airbnb.

Patent data puts 3D printing in top 10 fastest growing technologies of 2020

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The latest annual report from IFI CLAIMS Patent Services has identified 3D printing as the ninth fastest growing technology of 2020, based on US Patent and Trademark Office data.

The report compiles the enterprises, technologies, and countries that have received the most patents over the past year. Throughout 2020, patent grants declined less than one percent from 2019 to 352,013, despite the global Covid-19 pandemic, while patent applications rose almost five percent, continuing an upward trend seen for the past four years.

Significantly, both Kinpo Electronics and XYZprinting – subsidiaries of Kinpo Group – were included in the top five firms for filing 3D printing patents in 2020, with a combined patent application total of 545.

“Overall, US patent activity was down slightly last year, despite the pandemic,” said Mike Baycroft, CRO of IFI CLAIMS. “This is a minor downtick in what’s been a largely upward trajectory we’ve seen over the past decade, and it’s still one percent higher than what we saw in 2018. ”

“Another positive indicator is that published pre-grant applications saw a nominal increase in 2020. But we’ll have to wait at least another year before we can determine if the pandemic had any effect.”

3D printing is ninth fastest growing technology

IFI CLAIMS identified the 10 fastest growing technologies based on US patent application data through the end of 2020, grouping patent publications by Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) codes. CPC groups were then screened by size in 2020 and for rapid growth over a four year period from 2016 to 2020. 

In regards to 3D printing, the report shows the patent classification B33Y 40 (3D Printing; Auxiliary operations or equipment) is growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 27.14 percent. This places 3D printing as the ninth fastest growing technology of 2020 in IFI CLAIMS’ report. In 2017, 3D printing came in second place in the annual report after patent applications in the B33Y patent classification saw a 35 percent CAGR between 2013 and 2017.

Taking the top spot for 2020 with a four-year growth rate more than double that of 3D printing was computer systems based on biological models (67 percent CAGR), followed by electrical smoking devices with 55 percent, and Angiosperms – science technologies related to plant and seed development – at 49 percent. Machine learning was identified as the fourth fastest growing technology at 46 percent CAGR, while quantum computers, control systems for non-electric variables, information displays, information transfer, and automatic pilots and navigation systems for vehicles also made the list.

Patent Classification B33Y 40 3D Printing is growing at a CAGR of 27.14 percent. Image via IFI CLAIMS.

HP listed the most 3D printing patent applications in 2020, but Kinpo Group total supersedes

In 2020, the US received 47 percent of all new US patent grants with 164,379 overall, the largest share of any single country and triple the amount granted to Japanese firms (52,429) which received the second-largest share. South Korea took third place on the list with 22,400, ahead of China which ranked fourth with 18,792 grants.

The enterprises with the greatest number of 3D printing 2020 published patent applications are listed as follows:

Hewlett Packard Development (HP) – 470

General Electric (GE) – 331

Kinpo Electronics – 273

XYZprinting – 272

Boeing – 195

Interestingly, as Kinpo Electronics and XYZprinting are both subsidiaries of Kinpo Group, the data suggests the Kinpo Group filed a total of 545 3D printing patents in 2020, superseding that of HP by a significant margin.

Some of the patents included in this data are a Selectable Drive System from HP, manufacturing footwear utilizing foam particles from Nike, Markforged’s sintering furnace, and patents for Boeing’s method for treating powder particles with plasma radiation.

Taking a look at the rest of IFI CLAIMS’ Top 1,000 list of companies that received US patents in 2020, the top 10 companies named as being most active in 3D printing patents also includes Xerox, down 25 percent on the number of patents it filed in 2019, Continuous Composites which increased its patent grants from one in 2019 to 35 in 2020, and Carbon, which increased its patent activity by 93 percent. Concept Laser was the ninth most active company in 3D printing patents in 2020, followed by Applied Materials which more than doubled its amount of patent grants compared to the previous year. 

Other firms that saw large increases in their 3D patent activity in 2020 include Ford Global Technologies (up 157 percent), Autodesk (up 91 percent), Thermwood Corp with an 89 percent increase, and Align Technology with an 83 percent increase in activity.

More information about the 2020 Patent Trends and Insights from IFI CLAIMS Patent Services is available online.

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Featured image shows 3D printing was ranked the ninth fastest growing technology in 2020. Image via IFI CLAIMS.

 

Tags Align Technology Applied Materials autodesk B33Y 40 Boeing Carbon Concept Laser Continuous Composites Ford Global Technologies GE HP IFI CLAIMS Patent Services Kinpo Electronics markforged Mike Baycroft Nike Thermwood Corp xerox XYZPrinting

Hayley Everett

Hayley is a Technology Journalist for 3DPI and has a background in B2B publications spanning manufacturing, tools and cycling. Writing news and features, she holds a keen interest in emerging technologies which are impacting the world we live in.

Robbo received a patent for a 3D printer

Technique

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    Robbo, a Russian manufacturer of educational robotics for children, received a patent from the Federal Service for Intellectual Property for one of its developments, the Robbo Mini 3D Printer, designed for teaching children 3D modeling and 3D printing at home. The decision to grant a patent was made on the basis of the patentability conditions "novelty" and "originality" provided for in paragraph 1 of Art. 1352 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. nine0005

    Robbo's patent application was filed in August 2020. As a result of the examination, the compliance of the 3D printer with the requirements of articles 1231.1, 1349 and 1352 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation was established, on the basis of which a patent for industrial design No. 122799 was issued. The patent will be valid until August 2025

    Robbo Mini 3D Printer is designed as a 3D printing tutorial and runs on open source software and hardware. The 3D printer turns any model drawn by a child into a real three-dimensional object made of safe, biodegradable PLA plastic. Children can create models of products and plastic mechanisms up to 170x100x100 in size. At the same time, thanks to its compact design, the 3D printer takes up little space: its dimensions are 370x280x350 mm, and its weight is only 3. 5 kg. In addition to the printer itself, the kit also includes a USB stick with software and settings, a bar filter, a power supply, and a USB cable. nine0005

    Already in the near future, as noted by the company, additive technologies will be widely used in domestic production, medicine and the space industry. And "Robbo" will take a direct part in the training of personnel for the new segment of the IT industry.

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    Digitalization

    “The global 3D printing market is forecast to grow by almost 2.5 times over the next five years. However, unlike other countries where additive technologies have been actively used for several decades, for example, in industry and manufacturing, in Russia the 3D prototyping industry is only in its infancy. The appearance of the product “Robbo 3D-printer Mini” in Russian homes and schools will make it possible to prepare a pool of specialists capable of bringing the domestic industry of additive technologies to a qualitatively new level in the future. Moreover, our educational 3D printer has no analogues yet,” said Pavel Frolov , founder and producer of the Robbo company.

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    New ORNL 3D printing patent scandal

    News

    positioning system. The fact of issuing a patent caused a flurry of criticism from the developers of open source systems, who have been designing such additive equipment for a long time. nine0005

    Hangprinter additive system. Photo: Thomas Sanladerer

    ORNL and the patent office were criticized by two well-known promoters of open source additive technologies, Professors Dshoshua Pearce and Adrian Bower. Pierce is known for projects such as an inexpensive homemade 3D printer for printing metals using arc deposition technology, a homemade Cerberus additive system for working with refractory structural thermoplastics, a grinding machine from a grinder and 3D printed parts for making compression screws used in 3D printers for printing with granulates, and many other works. Bower needs no introduction at all - he is none other than the founder of the RepRap movement. nine0005

    Adrian Bower gets to know Hangprinter. Photo: Sally Bower

    Academics defended a young Swedish engineer named Torbjorn Ludwigsen, who asked on Twitter about the implications for his own project called Hangprinter. The fact is that the ORNL patent very closely repeats the development of the Swede five years ago, which we have already talked about in the material at this link. The essence of the project is in an unusual positioning system using cable guides with a suspended extruder. Such a scheme makes it possible to build simple and inexpensive, but at the same time large-format additive systems. nine0005

    Hangprinter additive system. Photo: Torbjorn Ludwigsen

    Torbjörn has built a "home" FDM 3D printer, and ORNL's patent US 11230032 considers a construction option for outdoor cement 3D printing suspended from a truck crane. There is no fundamental difference between these developments, the differences mainly relate to the purpose of the equipment.

    SkyBAAM 3D printer illustration from ORNL patent nine0053

    To be fair, the Hangprinter concept is not unique either. Similar options were considered by other designers, examples include Brandon Heller's SkyPrinter 2013 and RigTig's Big 3D Printer 2016. Torbjorn himself took up the job in 2014, and presented the first prototype in 2017. The problem is that none of the previous authors on this topic, including Torbjorn Ludwigsen, have applied for patents, preferring to put their developments in the public domain. nine0005

    SkyDelta 3D printer prototype. Photo: Brandon Heller

    Bower and Pierce believe that the ORNL patent should be invalidated because it repeats someone else's design and differs only in minor modifications that do not give the right to a patent. The piquancy of the situation is also in the fact that in the notes to the patent application there is a footnote to the news about Hangprinter, and therefore the patent office could not have been unaware of the project of the Swedish engineer.

    Hangprinter additive system. Photo: Torbjorn Ludwigsen

    The question arises: why did ORNL need this at all? There are several options here. In addition to the obvious versions of appropriation of foreign technologies or patent trolling, one can also assume the opposite version. The fact is that many companies, on the contrary, issue not protective, but so-called defensive patents, and they do this precisely to protect against potential exploiters of other people's developments. The concept of a defensive patent, as a rule, provides for the voluntary waiver of exclusive rights. In other words, "we have patented, but everyone can use it, the main thing is not to bother us with claims." nine0005

    Thorbjorn Ludwigsen with the 3D printed Tower of Babel demonstration. Photo: Make magazine

    Ludwigsen himself takes a rather reserved view of the situation, suggesting that this may just be an attempt to justify receiving a research grant.

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