this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2024
218 points (99.1% liked)

3DPrinting

15629 readers
330 users here now

3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.

The r/functionalprint community is now located at: !functionalprint@kbin.social or !functionalprint@fedia.io

There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml

Rules

If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is ![](URL)

Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

This is about a bad patent that is preventing slicers from making brick-layer prints that would increase strength enormously, despite the fact that there is clear prior art that has expired for nearly a decade. The patent is full of bad references to the prior art and clearly shouldn't have been approved - even if the person saying it isn't a lawyer, it's obvious.

The new bad patent from 2020 would keep the invention away for another 20 years, and do real harm to the development of 3d printing.

The creator asked viewers to share this with people in the FOSS slicer community. I don't know if that's anyone here, but lemmy is pretty FOSS-happy. Also the FOSS communities here might be interested to hear about how this patent is hamstringing development of FOSS features. I don't have the time right now to search through the communities so any crossposts would be welcome.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The patent system explicitly provides free access to knowledge. The patent is the knowledge that would be kept secret otherwise.

You would still have monopolies, except things like the ingredients to medicines would be unknown.

[–] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I don't see it that way. The systems we have in place now are the alternative to just sharing. The secret-keeping monopolistic behaviour of capitalists is preserved by things like the patent system, because they lend the appearance of legitimacy to an illegitimate system.

If you want to see the horror of the patent system, you juat have to look at the millions it killed in the pandemic.

The covid vaccine was developed by public and private researchers and paid for by the state, with a promise it would be made open source to allow anyone to manufacture it and hasten the end of the pandemic.

Bill Gates was one of the fucking vampires who blocked the open sourcing efforts, so poor countries couldn't manufacture it, allowing the pandemic to run unchecked in those places and of course mutate and inevitably make its way back to wealthier countries for yet another outbreak that actually makes our news because it affects us. The patents killed people.

These companies were funded to do it. There's no way they wouldn't have worked on the vaccine otherwise. The pandemic showed us what governments can do when a crisis actually threatens the status quo and they're forced to do the bare minimum of solving a problem. We didn't need patents for it, just the will.