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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?

#401

Post by ezst »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #225
RobotToaster wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They even copied lawfare techniques from American corporations, lol. It will be "interesting" where this takes us. If the American government decides to just ignore Chinese patents then we could see the Berne convention become a paper tiger (or even more of one than it already is)

I hope that's the outcome. Down with intellectual property!

Probably more that IP laws and their practical implementation need to be fixed. I have a hard time seeing how what you suggest won't inevitably benefit big, powerful, consolidated and influential players at the expense of the small, inovative ones, further slowing down the pace of innovation. Of course an even more obvious "fix" would be to outlaw "big, powerful, consolidated and influential players", oh, wait!

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#403

Post by 01100011 »

klntsky wrote: post #19
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…

That would bring down the price of patent spam even more. The problem is the cost of protection relative to the cost of attack, you can't do much.

Yes this.

While I sympathize with folks calling for weaker patents as an alternative solution, I think that's a non-starter given the power of entrenched interests.

If this were easily fixed, it would be fixed by now.

Best approach might be some OSS patent collective driven by community contributions and a legal team that heavily leverages things like AI to drive down costs. Even then, a big, well funded corp could just drain the coffers with a single, expensive legal battle.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#404

Post by BrenBarn »

izacus wrote: post #146
AlexandrB wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IP is just too strong. The terms are ridiculously long (especially for copyright), there are multiple workarounds for "fair use", such as DMCA, and patents on simple concepts like linked lists are not laughed out of the room. All of this stuff needs to be weakened (and shortened). Part of the reason Chinese companies are able to iterate quickly on technology like 3d printers or drones is that it's possible to simply…

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 a factor, but I also wonder whether the key morpheme there isn't the "mega" in "megacorps". If, say, entity A attempting to enforce IP against entity B had to pay fees proportional to the size ratio (e.g., Megacorp enforcing against Little Joe's Software requires a $1 billion fee from Megacorp), things would be different.

The problem there is identifying the relevant entity, and I think that is the key. And it's not just a problem with IP, it's a problem with all property: it's just too easy for "real" beneficial ownership to be hidden so that penalties and enforcement can be accurately targeted at big market players. A few well-targeted such actions could loosen things up a lot.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#405

Post by wongarsu »

foobarian wrote: post #355
nine_k wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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…

That still seems pretty easy to game by re-filing slight variations of the original patents

That would only protect those variations, not the previously published original version. And if the variations are too obvious you could even challenge their patents with a good chance of overturning them (which brings us back to the issue of the legal system being too slow and expensive)

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#406

Post by Joel_Mckay »

In my humble opinion, if a work is a community project it should stay open regardless of some small feature tweaks, and any kind of commercial revenue should be used to support the original authors as it literally costs people nothing as a tax deductible donation.

The key word here is "Should", as different places have different cultural values regarding intellectual property. Some see bad faith verbatim cloning as lucrative business opportunities (it rarely is), and creatives as a natural resource to be exploited (unfortunately they often are.)

Notably, a large part of the community quietly financially supports this cloning practice, and rarely follow their lofty ideals when purchasing.

Commercial opportunities are naturally degenerating in a saturated market, and businesses that did innovate their own unique products owe people nothing.

Note, competing with free is a bad business model, and the faster cloners fail the better. Prusa was boosted by the rep-rap project, and has spent decades rehashing the same core designs. It is not a sustainable growth strategy. =3

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#408

Post by intended »

AlexandrB wrote: post #104
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…

IP is just too strong. The terms are ridiculously long (especially for copyright), there are multiple workarounds for "fair use", such as DMCA, and patents on simple concepts like linked lists are not laughed out of the room. All of this stuff needs to be weakened (and shortened). Part of the reason Chinese companies are able to iterate quickly on technology like 3d printers or drones is that it's possible to simply…

IP is always strong, because information does not behave like other goods. There are no “degrees” either you have protection and enforce it, or you dont.

It seems we tend to struggle with most things that obey power laws (wealth, attention, trust) in our economies and societies.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#409

Post by nerdsniper »

nine_k wrote: post #241
jandrese wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The inevitable result of this will be spamming the system with basically-the-same patents every year. This article lists the cost to fight patents at $6,000 to $75,000 for each patent. It’ll be hard for small players to adversarially strike down 3,000 self-similar patents every year which block real innovation.

Yes, the patent office should do a better job of understanding their areas of expertise and prior art. In absence of that, perhaps the patent fees could go to a revenue-neutral system where successfully overturning patents as a private citizen results in getting a share of the total pool of filing and renewal fees.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#410

Post by gr4vityWall »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #217
AlexandrB wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IP is just too strong. The terms are ridiculously long (especially for copyright), there are multiple workarounds for "fair use", such as DMCA, and patents on simple concepts like linked lists are not laughed out of the room. All of this stuff needs to be weakened (and shortened). Part of the reason Chinese companies are able to iterate quickly on technology like 3d printers or drones is that it's possible to simply…

To be fair, in the States, you can own a small business, come up with a good idea, and someone can just copy it and compete against you regardless if it's copyright infringement or not. And that's in the context of a domestic legal issue. You have to be able to defend your intellectual property, and that's expensive, which is the parent comment's point. I mean, imagine you, AlexandrB, come up with some good idea, sta…

> Should... we just not care about that?

... Yes.

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