As three-dimensional printing technology reaches the place at which the personal computer arrived in the late 1980s — the American home — it may bring legal and practical issues along with it.
“It’s the first time that the average person is coming into contact with patent law,” said Deven R. Desai, a professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego.
Patent law, environmental issues and the simple equation of personal time divided by patience make it uncertain that 3-D printers in every home will produce anything more than shelves full of tchotchkes.
“I think of technology as value-neutral; it offers a lot of opportunity for people,” said Michael Weinberg, a lawyer with Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for open Internet access.
The opportunity with 3-D printing is that the average person can make something a replacement part for a coffee-maker — or produce a whole new coffee-maker.
That opportunity could be a threat, say, to Keurig, maker of the popular single-serve coffee maker.
“We don’t really know what it looks like when 100 million people in the United States have a 3-D printer,” Weinberg said.
What it may feel like for patent-holding businesses is an upset stomach.
Source: providencejournal.com