Motorola Mobility, a Google company, is building a 3D printed modular phone, and has partnered with 3D Systems for commercial fulfillment. More »
The Captured Dimensions pop-up studio was located in the Smithsonian Castle and featured approximately 80 digital cameras all connected to 3D software. More »
Microsoft expanded their support for 3D printing by launching a Windows 8 app called 3D Builder. It includes a library of objects you can edit and 3D print. More »
3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) announced the availability of the Sense 3D scanner, the first 3D scanner designed for the consumer and optimized for 3D printing. More »
With rumors circling that 3D Systems will be purchased by IBM, the stock soars. We look at why IBM might be interested in the 3D printing giant. More »
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Video: Objet’s Largest Ever 3D Printer Objet1000 Hits the Market
The Objet1000 is Objet‘s largest ever 3D printer. With a build platform of 1000 x 800 x 500 mm (39 x 31 x 20 inch), the system enables designers, engineers and manufacturers to quickly and easily create large and very precise models for prototyping parts and products in automotive, defense, aerospace, consumer goods, household appliances and industrial machinery sectors. The system features Objet Connex multi-material technology offering standard and ABS plastic performance, a choice of over 100 materials and the ability to mix up to 14 different materials in a single prototype or model to achieve the true look, feel and function of your intended end product.
Can New 3D Printing Patents Be Challenged? EFF Says Yes.
Earlier this month, we reported that a 3D printing patent had been issued to create a DRM-like layer around printable goods. This is just one of many patents that will be prosecuted around the emerging 3D printing revolution. Ironically, however, the technology itself is 30 years old and may be subject to “prior art” that invalidates any recently filed patents.
This is the hope of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a donor-supported organization that works to protect fundamental rights regardless of technology. Here is an excerpt from EFF’s blog.
Thanks to the open hardware community, you can now have a 3D printer in your home for just a few hundred dollars, with dozens of printer models to choose from and build upon. Community-designed printers already outclass proprietary printers costing 30 times as much. This incredible innovation is possible because the core patents covering 3D printing technologies started expiring several years ago, allowing projects such as RepRap to prove what we already knew—that openness often outperforms the patent system at spurring innovation.
Open hardware printers have been used for rapid prototyping of new inventions, to print replacement parts for household objects and appliances, by DIY scientists to turn a power drill into a centrifuge, for a game in which you can engineer your own pieces, and for thousands of other purposes by makers of all stripes. Projects like MakerBot and Solidoodle have made 3D printers accessible on a plug-and-play basis, so you don’t even need a soldering iron to start manufacturing objects you designed or downloaded from the internet. As additional patents expire, the open hardware community will be able to unleash its creative spirit on new technologies, technologies that have already been used to design custom prosthetics, guitars, shoes, and more. The possibilities are limitless.
The Problem
While many core patents restricting 3D printing have expired or will soon expire, there is a risk that “creative” patent drafting will continue to lock up ideas beyond the 20-year terms of those initial patents or that patents will restrict further advances made by the open hardware community. The incremental nature of innovation in 3D printing makes it particularly unsuitable for patenting, as history has shown.
The Project
We’ve said before that the America Invents Act failed to address many of the patent system’s worst problems. Despite that, it does include at least one provision we think could be helpful: the newly implemented Preissuance Submission procedure. That procedure allows third parties to participate in the patent application process by creating a vehicle to provide patent examiners with prior art. We’re glad to see the Patent Office open up the process to those who might not be filing patents themselves, but who are affected by the patent system everyday. We’re also glad that this new process may help stem the tide of improvidently-granted patents.
EFF and the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society are working together to use this new process to challenge patent applications that particularly threaten growing 3D printing technologies. As a first step, we are evaluating 3D printing patent applications currently pending before the Patent Office to identify potential target applications.We need your help! If you know of any applications covering 3D printing technology that you think should be challenged, please let us know by emailing 3Dprinting@eff.org (and also point us to any relevant prior art you might know about).
To get involved with the search, go to the USPTO’s application search tool, PAIR, and/or Google Patents. Each of these sources contains valuable details about the applications currently pending before the USPTO. Here’s the thing: under the current rules, a patent application may only be challenged by a Preissuance Submission within six months of its publication (or before the date of the first rejection, if that comes later). This means the clock is already ticking on the current crop of patent applications.
Once target applications are identified, we will seek out relevant prior art. We’ll be asking for your help again then, so please watch this space. Any document that was publicly available before an application was filed is considered prior art; this can include emails to public lists, websites, and even doctoral theses. Because of the time limit, once we identify the target applications, we must complete the prior art search quickly.
We’re glad there’s a new way to to challenge dangerous patent applications before they become dangerous patents. But the America Invents Act and the search capabilities of the Patent Office’s website won’t make this job easy. We need your help to get this done, so please do what you can to help protect the 3D printing community from overbroad patents that can threaten exciting innovation.
Horizon photo by Norma Desmond used under Creative Commons license.
New Plan for Manufacturing Jobs in EU: Invest Heavily in 3D Printing
In the face of a global financial crisis, the European Union is having its share of challenges to grow the economies of the EU member states. The European Commission has a new plan for reviving the declining manufacturing sector which has lost 3 million jobs. The plan calls for member states to invest heavily in 3D printing.
In a leaked paper seen by Reuters, 3D printing is highlighted as a path to job and GDP growth.
The paper which outlines the bloc’s future industrial policy said the commission wants to raise manufacturing from 16 percent to 20 percent of EU GDP by 2020 using new techniques such as 3D printing which builds objects using instructions from a printer.
Enthusiasts for 3D printing say it will revolutionise manufacturing in electronics such as mobile phones and save millions in costs as it would be as cheap to produce one phone as it would be to make thousands.
Some predict that in the more distant future households will have such printers to make mundane objects such as shoes.
Other initiatives for growth include biotech, green vehicles and smart grids.
Via Reuters.
EU Commission program photo by sararasmussen used under Creative Commons license.
Imagine 3D Printer: Print Frosting, Mashed Potatoes and Much More
Instead of 3D printing with plastic, how about frosting or mashed potatoes? How about other soft materials found around the house?
The Imagine 3D Printer uses special plastic syringes that extrude any kind of soft material. The company wants you to experiment with ideas. Just remember to wash out the syringes afterward.
Imagine 3D Printer is in a class by itself. Imagine is a multi-material machine and thus can make objects with any material that you place in the cartridge. There is an infinite number of materials that you can use. If you can bring it to a soft form first (using a household blender), you can print with it. The sky is the limit.
The Imagine 3D Printer is available for sale and costs $1,995.
Watch the video to see the 3D printer in action.
Via OhGizmo.
America Will Lead the Future of Manufacturing, China Will Follow
In a fantastic opinion piece by technology entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa, the case is made that America will be the center of manufacturing, not China. This won’t happen through increasing Chinese labor costs or monetary policy, but through American innovation in technology. Specific innovations cited include robotics, AI, 3D printing, and nanotechnology.
Below are Wadhwa’s thoughts on 3D printing:
A type of manufacturing called “additive manufacturing” is now making it possible to cost-effectively “print” products. In conventional manufacturing, parts are produced by humans using power-driven machine tools, such as saws, lathes, milling machines, and drill presses, to physically remove material until you’re left with the shape desired. This is a cumbersome process that becomes more difficult and time-consuming with increasing complexity. In other words, the more complex the product you want to create, the more labor is required and the greater the effort.
In additive manufacturing, parts are produced by melting successive layers of materials based on three-dimensional models — adding materials rather than subtracting them. The ”3D printers” that produce these parts use powered metal, droplets of plastic, and other materials — much like the toner cartridges that go into laser printers. This allows the creation of objects without any sort of tools or fixtures. The process doesn’t produce any waste material, and there is no additional cost for complexity. Just as, thanks to laser printers, a page filled with graphics doesn’t cost much more than one with text (other than the cost of toner), with 3D printers we can print a sophisticated 3D structure for what it would cost to print something simple.
Three-D printers can already create physical mechanical devices, medical implants, jewelry, and even clothing. The cheapest 3D printers, which print rudimentary objects, currently sell for between $500 and $1,000. Soon, we will have printers for this price that can print toys and household goods. By the end of this decade, we will see 3D printers doing the small-scale production of previously labor-intensive crafts and goods. It is entirely conceivable that, in the next decade, manufacturing will again become a local industry and it will be possible to 3D print electronics and use giant 3D printing scaffolds to print entire buildings. Why would we ship raw materials all the way to China and then ship completed products back to the United States when they can be manufactured more cheaply locally, on demand?
Read the full article at foreignpolicy.com.
American flag photo by Loving Earth used under Creative Commons license.
Vivek Wadhwa photo by BAIA used under Creative Commons license.
