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Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

josefprusa.com

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Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#241

Post by nine_k »

jandrese wrote: post #200
izacus wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more I look into it, the more I'm convinced that current state of IP law is the rot at the core of western worlds technological stagnation. The rise of monopolistic megacorps, lack of independent innovation and enshittifcation can pretty much be traced back to the wide free market violating reach of current IP law. This article just highlights it and shows how China weaponized this weakness of the west and is suc…

It's telling that before the Patent system the solution was secretive guilds that jealously (sometimes lethally) guarded their secrets to avoid competition. This was obviously terrible since it greatly slowed down innovation. I'm not sure what the correct solution is to this problem. We want to avoid anything that causes a return of the guild system, but at the same time we don't want small inventors steamrolled by l…

(Repeating for umpteenth time:) I wish patent fees were exponential. Pay $10 the first year, $40 the second year, $160 the third year,.. $10,485,760 the tenth year, etc. The patent expires and goes to public domain the first year when the fee has not been not paid.

This way there'd be enough time to commercialize an invention for basically peanuts, so the small guy won't be dissuaded from doing so. OTOH holding on a patent for a very long time would only be possible if it brings gobs of money, end even so, only for a reasonably limited time, because on 15th year the fee would be $10,737,418,240.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#242

Post by softfalcon »

amluto wrote: post #234

If the US cared about remaining competitive with China, the government would attack this . Example approaches: a) Smallish hammer: disallow priority based on Chinese patents. b) Big hammer: if anyone wants to manufacture anything in the US and sell to the US market, give an automatic patent workaround. For example, there could be compulsory licensing, at enforced and genuinely reasonable prices, for all patents, fore…

I think I agree with you.

That being said, I have doubts anything will change because I have a feeling that this system is continuing to "work as designed".

These failings are exploitable and since the US government is somewhat bought and paid for, this is how it works. The intent might be to keep it this way.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#243

Post by andrepd »

bunderbunder wrote: post #186
simpaticoder wrote: post #11

The real story here is that IP ownership is capital-intensive when it shouldn't be. Open-source and community-led IP contributions are grossly under-protected because of this, and those with capital become unopposed predators. This is a special-case of the more general observation that the justice system is capital-intensive when it shouldn't be. The answer is something you very rarely hear: the US (especially) needs…

Presence in the courtroom is kind of a red herring. It's uncommon for cases to get that far. The real costs come from the US legal system being originally designed by and for agrarian villages of Saxons arguing with each other about who stole whose sheep, with the process handled in a more-or-less ad-hoc manner by village leaders for whom it's mostly a side responsibility, and the whole mess serving double duty as a…

This would imply that civil law systems don't suffer from these problems, but they do. I don't think common law is to blame for the complexity of the justice system.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#244

Post by porphyra »

hyperbovine wrote: post #125
zevon wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prusa makes their products locally, the spare part situation is good, the company runs an open Makerspace in their basement, helps host conferences and has done a lot for Open Hardware in general. They also have offered consistent upgrade paths for old machines for a long time and the repairability in general is good. You can also talk to them. These things matter for purchase decisions. Same logic as per your Knipex…

I want so much to like Prusa ... but the Bambu printer at my local makerspace costs half as much and is better in every way than the MK3S+ sitting in my basement. I'm fully aware that this is the result of shrewdness on the part of the Chinese, plus incompetence in the West, and it's so frustrating.

Chinese government subsidies aside, mass produced 3D printers are always going to enjoy the economies of scale that are difficult to replicate with kits. Prusa printers are awesome pieces of engineering, but sometimes you can just get equally good results for a fraction of the price, in a much more user-friendly "plug and play" fashion, once you have a million of them rolling out of a factory instead of 10,000 kits full of 3D printed parts.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#245

Post by lettergram »

simpaticoder wrote: post #11

The real story here is that IP ownership is capital-intensive when it shouldn't be. Open-source and community-led IP contributions are grossly under-protected because of this, and those with capital become unopposed predators. This is a special-case of the more general observation that the justice system is capital-intensive when it shouldn't be. The answer is something you very rarely hear: the US (especially) needs…

For what it's worth, I run a company in the space --

I 100% agree with you and luckily I think with AI this will rapidly change. The USPTO is bringing on as many AI tools as possible, as fast as they can. Similarly, we've built a product that can invalidate patents at scale, conduct prior art searches in 15 minutes what used to take weeks and thousands of dollars --

https://search.ipcopilot.ai/

We and others in the space are rapidly gaining traction, so I suspect it's only a matter of time. I should also mention there are whole networks out there battling patent trolls (LOT Network) and others working on open source, etc.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#246

Post by vel0city »

amluto wrote: post #234

If the US cared about remaining competitive with China, the government would attack this . Example approaches: a) Smallish hammer: disallow priority based on Chinese patents. b) Big hammer: if anyone wants to manufacture anything in the US and sell to the US market, give an automatic patent workaround. For example, there could be compulsory licensing, at enforced and genuinely reasonable prices, for all patents, fore…

I do think there needs to be reforms about non-practicing entities holding large patent portfolios. Maybe we should have some kind of FRAND (or FRAND-like) requirements for their portfolios.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#247

Post by ohdeargodno »

pessimizer wrote: post #154
Workaccount2 wrote: post #20

As a hardware guy, and someone who loves coming up with fun product ideas, China is the ASI LLM of the hardware world. Like don't even bother trying to compete, they are faster, cheaper, have better yield, and don't really need to be profitable. Imagine what the software industry would look like if an LLM could look at any completed software product, and a few weeks to a month later have made a perfect copy of it. It…

I'm sorry, but isn't this a job for tariffs? Tariffs are how you impose an artificial cost on some exporter who is using an unfair subsidy, whether slave labor, bad environmental regulation, non-enforcement of the intellectual property system of the importing country, etc... all the way down to simple direct subsidy and willingness to take a loss in order to ruin the importing country's domestic industry. The fair, c…

Tariffs only work if you have alternatives you can buy. China is the only reasonable source of procurement on the vast majority of goods in the world.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#248

Post by zevon »

ohdeargodno wrote: post #236
sarchertech wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not better in every way. For long term reliability and ability to repair and upgrade, Prusa is far superior.

Cool, but that's not why people buy things. I don't buy a bike for the pleasure of getting to repair it when I inevitably eat shit on a gravel road. While you're busy ordering parts for your Prusa and taking it apart, people just buy another A1 or P1P for basically nothing. While you're spending 5 hours trying to stabilise your printing plate and ensuring your nozzle isn't vomiting out super melted , the bambulabs go…

You don't care how expensive and complicated it is to repair and maintain your mountain bike (especially if you plan to eat gravel a lot)? And your take on machines is that you better throw away a bunch of working 3D printers and replace them instead of upgrading the old ones and adding new ones as needed? Hope you have a lot of money to burn in your personal and business life. ;)

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#249

Post by lettergram »

amluto wrote: post #234

If the US cared about remaining competitive with China, the government would attack this . Example approaches: a) Smallish hammer: disallow priority based on Chinese patents. b) Big hammer: if anyone wants to manufacture anything in the US and sell to the US market, give an automatic patent workaround. For example, there could be compulsory licensing, at enforced and genuinely reasonable prices, for all patents, fore…

I run a company in this space...

First, China patents ~5-10x more than the US does currently on a given month. Further, China has made it required for companies to patent.

The US definitely could not respect the Chinese patents, or they could treat Chinese patent's differently. IMO there's a ~1% chance of that happening. Patent law is pretty well defined, there are a multitude of treaties and if the US wants their patents to be respected, they have to respect the worlds.

That said, I will say, I suspect a lot of these patents can be invalidated. My company works heavily in this space and we work with some of the top US law firms. We sell a service that's used to identify prior art and invalidate patents in ~15 minutes -- https://search.ipcopilot.ai/

There's a lot of prior art in the open source community that can be used to attack these patents. Further, if folks publish their innovation it'll provide a solid layer of prior art.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#250

Post by jwr »

hyperbovine wrote: post #125
zevon wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prusa makes their products locally, the spare part situation is good, the company runs an open Makerspace in their basement, helps host conferences and has done a lot for Open Hardware in general. They also have offered consistent upgrade paths for old machines for a long time and the repairability in general is good. You can also talk to them. These things matter for purchase decisions. Same logic as per your Knipex…

I want so much to like Prusa ... but the Bambu printer at my local makerspace costs half as much and is better in every way than the MK3S+ sitting in my basement. I'm fully aware that this is the result of shrewdness on the part of the Chinese, plus incompetence in the West, and it's so frustrating.

I don't even care much about cost, but the Bambu Lab printers are simply better. I have been selling my Prusas (MK3S+ and XL), because they are just too much of a hassle. Prusa has fallen behind in R&D, the Bambu Lab printers work better, are more automated, have more nicely engineered features (having to babysit my XL and wipe the dripping filament off the print heads was such a disappointment).

And yes, I have had to fix both brands. The repairability of the Prusa is largely a myth, you still need to order replacement parts from Prusa, just as with other brands.

I wish Prusa would catch up with their R&D.

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