Normally I am one of the least critical people about patents and closed sourced

3D Printing
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Normally I am one of the least critical people about patents and closed sourced printers. However recently @MakerBot1 started applying for patent on other peoples works. That is unforgivable. However some people in the community are acting out of anger, not logic. Deleting your thingiverse account/Changing all of your models breaks the chain of proof required to prevent them from patenting your work in the future.

I wanted to share what i did. I left all of my models as is on thingiverse, I changed the description of the model to contain a link to a different host. I commented why i moved the model, then the description was added.

Violating the TOS at thingiverse will annoy the 1 person at MBI that has to take it down. Protesting politely will leave a lasting mark on thingiverse. DO NOT VIOLATE THEIR TOS.

Here is a link to a model that i did this on. It still has the creation date, the license, and all of the links that anyone else may have used should still be functional
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:127885

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thanks for the post, none of my stuff is worth patent but i will do the same

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Don’t have any worthy designs, I’ll get your point

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I’ve been starting to use Repables.org but I would be keen to find a more active repository. Any suggestions?

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http://www.YouMagine.com - Run by UltiMaker, and generally trustworthy. The many Ingentis variants were posted there recently, with more and more people continuing to use it daily.

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I almost bought a MakerBot. My school got a bunch of them and I thought I would follow suit. I’ve now been pushing my reprap a lot, hoping to sway future purchases. It is the superior product, hands down. I’ve been so much happier with it. It may require more work (that’s the part the school doesn’t like, and I can see their point) but it’s so much more versatile.

MakerBot seems to have a few people in it who are stuck in a specific mindset. It’s their way or the highway. I bought a Rep 2 but refused delivery because they refused to do the proper customs paperwork, leaving me with a huge bill. When I explained that doing the paperwork in advance actually reduces the charges, they didn’t care. So back that printer went. But this was a blessing in disguise.

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@Nils_Hitze Even if your designs are not worth patenting you still have a hard redirect away from thingiverse, my designs are not really worth patenting either. Linking externally is allowed, lets face it more people know about thingiverse then the alternatives. Directing people away when they find a model they like is a step away from the Thingiverse being the “largest repository”