Today there were several threads on different social media platforms related to the number of patents filed by Bambu Lab, covering many aspects of 3d printing already existing and the subject of open source work
Perhaps this patenting creating a chilling effect?
These patent seekers are almost like domain squatters, not adding value but wants to own an idea without actually producing a sizable market themselves.
Maybe it's novel? Who really knows though unless you want to spend time through the sprawling patent system. Or the body of work that encompasses the open source rep rap community.
No surprises really. Bambu was clearly a commercial/proprietary enterprise. A lot of their employees come from DJI, which is equally locked down. The only reason they released their slicer software is because of the GPL (hey, it works!).
Maybe we should propose legislation for an IP black hole list. If too many of a company's patents are invalidated, the company loses the ability to create or hold patents.
Patents have to be issued in the name of people (although they can ultimately be assigned to companies). So you could institute some kind of ban for 10 years or something if too many of the person's patent applications turn out to be total BS.
Yeah, I agree. I had a similar thought while writing the note. Some sort of ban is an entertaining thought, but hiding ownership is probably too easy for bans to make a meaningful difference.
Looks like most of these patents are in china. I would be curious to see how these do in a us filing given how much prior set they'd have to navigate around in 3d printing
Those are still pending and probably won't go through. That stuff is old tech and considered state of the art. It's like you're trying to patent the wheel.
