Yeah, the patent system is so far gone I hope it will not still exist in its current form in my lifetime.
-We are in a global economy, so local patents have a limited effect of consumer goods that are typically globally sourced.
-The price and time it takes to get a patent is prohibitive, but not completely out of reach…but the cost of maintaining and enforcing them is astronomical, driving the price of the item too high to be competitive. Leaving room for competition.
-Lawsuits can be dragged out indefinitely until one party runs out of money, and they lose by default. The case doesn’t even get heard. You can buy anything you want if you have more money.
I have a lot of opinions about this whole thing. I am very interested to see how this goes in the maker media cycle.
Note this has been published by Prusa3d - and there is a strong historical (non commercial) connection there.
Comments about open source hardware start at about 9minutes in. I didn’t bookmark it because the whole monologue is worth a look if you are interested in this stuff.
So far there’s nothing not to like. I had a squeak show up about 10 - 15 hours in. Thought it might be one of the steppers, popped the back off and pulled the stepper and the two pulleys back there, nothing felt off. Put it back together, and no squeak. Belt tension is stupid easy. It’s just a spring on one of the pulleys. The AMS’s are a touch loud at the end of a print when they retract the filament back into them. This thing is way quieter than my railcore. There’s an led strip under the bed which will flash red for errors, but generally just shows the print percentage. That’s pretty neat.
Shouldn’t be patented. Quality of patent examinations vary wildly.
Corporations that wish to see a technology shared often patent and license freely to prevent someone else from patenting and “forcing” others to engage in a prior art disqualification battle that may ensue if they simply publish rather than patent and freely license.
Of course these are often done to enforce a patent use truce between corporations, too.
What would be an immense improvement is reducing the cost and effort to get patents nullified for prior art.
Belt tension is stupid easy. It’s just a spring on one of the pulleys. The AMS’s are a touch loud at the end of a print when they retract the filament back into them. This thing is way quieter than my railcore. There’s an led strip under the bed which will flash red for errors, but generally just shows the print percentage. That’s pretty neat.
