This is upsetting! Another case of a company taking from the open source community, and patenting it! Anyone know the actual patent number? Probably not a US patent, but I wonder what effect this will have. I am curious how broad the wording is.
http://www.3ders.org//articles/20160622-zortrax-patents-self-levelling-technology-actively-used-in-their-successful-m200-3d-printer.html
If the technology or method is in the public domain already, the patent will not be defensible.
I just turn the screws on the base …
The parent will not be approved if it is not defensible.
The problem we have as a community, the reason it’s possible for companies to patent existing designs, is because hobbyists don’t document shit worth a shit. If the patent examiner can’t find prior art, they will award the patent. How do we usually document our inventions? A forum post? Please. Nobody’s going to find that in a prior art review. If you want something to stay in the public domain, you have to actually DOCUMENT IT IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN in a way that is 1) findable and 2) explained clearly for a competent person who doesn’t know much about 3D printing to understand.
Self leveling with microswitches predates our innovation in this realm, but we tweaked the code for the use of non-contact induction sensors for our Printrbots back in 2013 for the original Wooden simple. We published the code in our Marlin repository. This patent is bogus. The article is laughable too.
The quality of that writing is terrible.
I couldn’t find the patent, by company name or by the CEO’s name. The story doesn’t even say where they filed. I don’t see where they allegedly have to put so much effort to “level” when their slicer strongly favors using a raft.
Thank you @Brook_Drumm
Ps. I love your Printrbots, thank you for those as well :-). Own a Simple Metal + heated bed kit, probably the best purchase I have ever made. Cheers.
Either it’s the result of this listing: http://zortrax.pl/job/patent-agent-2/ (use Chrome’s translate feature) or we can expect some more news from them in the future.
@Thomas_Sanladerer Thanks for posting that. Unfortunately I have a feeling that it’s the latter of the two. The patent system today (at least in the USA) is never used as it was originally intended to be used when it was adopted. Now it’s just ammunition for legal disputes.
@Ryan_Branch one might argue this is exactly how it was intended to be used.
I’ve talked with a few patent lawyers and employees at the US patent office… Everyone that o have talked to agrees that our patent process is broken. There are pockets of reform happening and in the works, but hopefulness that it CAN be fixed is low. Anecdotal, I know.
After talking w a couple employees that actually do the approval process, I found them to be honest hard working people doing the best they can in a very difficult situation. Specifically, the increasing technical nature of software patents is extremely time intensive to deal with and determine the right decisions.
Id hate to be the ones having to decide what to approve and what not to. Im sure some are easier then others to go through, but like the age old rule says, You cant be an expert at everything…
Buddy of mine worked as a US patent examiner for a while. He found it very unpleasant. They’re overworked and asked to deep-dive research all these obscure, convoluted technical claims. And many (most?) of the lawyers writing the patent text are deliberately trying to push the claims as broadly as possible, so it’s a battle to draw lines around what does and does not deserve to be granted.
This looks like the patent in question: https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2015174867
That doesn’t look special. They seem to be patenting a typical three+ point bed level detection with a conductive bed surface. Lulzbot’s conductive corner detection system might be directly threatened, but overall, this is negligibly different from standard Marlin levelling/tramming. Unless there’s something I missed, this is pretty much bullshit.
Looks like what they’re claiming is checking bed height at three points by making electrical contact between the nozzle and bed, then using that height data to print a raft. Surely there’s prior art? Anybody have any documented examples pre-dating June 2014?