Stratasys Sues Afinia for Patent Infringement

[Peter Leppik]

I saw a press release yesterday that Stratasys, Makerbot's new parent company, has sued Afinia for parent infringement. Afinia resells the Up! 3D printer under its own name here in the U.S.

I thought this was interesting because several of Stratasys' claims, if they are upheld, could apply to most or all RepRap and similar printers. In particular, Stratasys is claiming that the Afinia's heated bed infringes a Stratasys patent; that the Afinia's settings for different infill levels infringe another Stratasys patent; and that the design of the Afinia's hot end (which is very similar to most hobbyist-level hot ends) infringes a third patent.

I'm not a patent expert, and this will probably take years to play out. It's not clear if Stratasys wants to eliminate Makerbot competition from the market entirely or just impose a "Stratasys tax."

But given that a lot of people in this group have been involved in the RepRap community, I thought this would be of interest.

Here's a link to the court filing: http://www.scribd.com/doc/187032198/Stratasys-v-Microboards-Technology

-Peter

[Jetguy]

So is Cubify next?  Joseph Prusa himself for his hot end?  Honestly who is not at risk here?

"The ’124 patent generally relates to an apparatus for controlling the temperature of extrudable material in the liquifier of the extruder through the use of a novel thin-wall tube construction in the liquifier."

That's EVERY all metal hot end on the market.

 

What is this, some kind of real life Demolition Man?

Instead of all restaurants being Taco Bell, all 3D printers are MakerBots?

[Jetguy]

Further, why go after Afinia?

 

Type A series 1 (the older 2012) is about the only folks I know who are not about to get pinched on those patents.

No heated bed, Makergear hotend that does not have a thinned section in the liquifier, and well, they use the same open source Rep-G and other software just like everyone else.

 

So is Replicator-G infringing? Not a slicer on the planet tht doesn't set infill by chaning the spacing or pattern.

 

If there is no legal slicer- then there is no machine but a Stratsys/MakerBot.

 

Wouldn't that infill patent be overly broad and also make any 3D printing more or less impossible for any company (3D Systems) to compete in the marketplace?

http://www.faqs.org/patents/assignee/stratasys-inc/

[Jetguy]

Then take Ultimaker.

Orignal UM, no heated bed, no thin tube liquifier, maybe get popped on the infill thing (how can you not?).

UM2, heated bed, new extruder probably also a problem, and the infill thing.

 

Flash Forge: built based on open source design, heated bed, thin tube extruder, even using Makerbot software and Firmware, not a MakerBot and therfore in trouble?

 

QU-BD Revolution

heated bed, MK7 hot ends, infill= also in trouble?

 

Are they going to take down every heated bed and thermal barrier tube on the planet which would even affect kits, self builts, DIYs, as you kill the source of parts?

On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 2:16:47 PM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:

[Jay]

On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 2:16:47 PM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote:

"The ’124 patent generally relates to an apparatus for controlling the temperature of extrudable material in the liquifier of the extruder through the use of a novel thin-wall tube construction in the liquifier."

Hahahah....funny!

I remember we had a discussion that the 2X's enclosure got around a patent because it wasn't (itself) heated but retained the heat. Even then, you or someone else pointed out the way the patent was written they could still get anyone with an enclosure..no matter if it was heated or not...

If it's like the mobile phone world...after the suits will come the knee-jerk buying of any patent idea that applies...you'll see companies pop up with a great idea only to disappear in a buyout...

Cheers

Jay

[Peter Leppik]

It's going to take years for this to fully play out, by which time three of the four patents could be very close to expiration.

But keep in mind that:

1) This is one side of the story. Afinia will undoubtably argue that the patents aren't as broad as Stratasys claims, and/or they are invalid due to either prior art or obviousness. The 2013 patent seems especially likely to have prior art, if someone can dig up an open source slicer using similar algorithms from before the filing date.

2) Stratasys may be intending to force everyone to make royalty payments, not destroy the whole industry. Were Stratasys to charge a fee to all comers (i.e. $10 per hot end sold) that wasn't too outrageous, they could make a lot of money and still allow the hobby market to grow. We don't know their strategy here.

      -Peter

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[billyd60]

Well you can't patent ideas, only the design approach to implementing an idea.

 

Point is you can't patent a heated build plate exactly, all you can do is protect the way you make your heated build plate. And it's not enough to slap a heating element into a structure and power it. That is not a novel combination of elements and is not patentable, or at the least would never stand in court.

On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 1:37:40 PM UTC-5, Peter wrote:

[Joseph Chiu]

You can certainly patent an idea if the idea is a novel way of doing *something* useful, and the patent for that process could also protect that very *something*.    

If nobody had a heated build plate before, nobody had previously realized the utility of the heated build plate, and there were no heated build plate in practice or described in some anticipatory way, then a certain entity realizes a heated build plate is useful, implements it, and then patents it; that entity could very well have a valid claim on the heated build plate.  They will have to defend said claim against prior art, obviousness or the idea being anticipated prior to the claimed invention.

IMHO, YMMV, IANAL, and all that.

[billyd60]

Patents cover specific methods of implementing an idea, not the idea itself. A heated plate is not patentable, only the specific design of your heated plate is patentable. All someone has to do is come up with a different, or better way to heat a plate and your patent is not infringed.

[Jetguy]

Right, so they hold the patent on H-bot configuration? That explains a little about why CoreXY exists, to "walk around" that patent.

See, these guys got may have gotten caught up http://www.3ders.org/articles/20130406-low-cost-open-source-cyrus-3d-printer.html in that exact problem.

[lovethepirk]

Billy,

I deal with some patent and trademark issues, there is the potential a heated build plate could be patented.  Also, there are thousands of patents that upon litigation are found to be weak and/or not patentable although they are.  Patent law is not an easy discussion at all.  You mentioned that you cannot patent and idea just the design approach, that isn't accurate b/c that would mean someone could make my exact product just use a different method.   Apple and Samsung wouldn't be fighting every day then.

There are also what are called Design Patents that are typically in my field ornamental design and that's it, not utility or implementation method.

[Joseph Chiu]

If you come up with a new way of implementing a heated build plate, you can come up with a new patent (or release it into the public domain) -- but any existing patent on the use of heated build plate to improve additive manufacturing (which would be a utility patent, not a design patent) will still take precedence while it is active.  So you would still be prevented from using your novel heat plate design if the holder of the preceding patent does not grant you the use of their patent.

[lovethepirk]

Jetguy,

I haven't looked at the articles, but it appears that snapshot you posted is just an "application"  there is no protection guaranteed for Strat. yet.  Furthermore, here is a screenshot of the prosecution of that patent by the Patent examiners who love to sharpen their fangs in anticipation of the fool who dares to trespass in their realm.  You can see they had a semi-recent rejection. 

If anyone would like to learn how to look this up I can help...

[Joseph Chiu]

> Here's a link to the court filing: http://www.scribd.com/doc/187032198/Stratasys-v-Microboards-Technology

Peter,

Thanks for the link to the court filing.  

They claim to own the heat controlled environment (US5866058), the infill (US5653925), the hot end (US6004124), and the perimeter seam hiding (US8349239).

I'm not so sure about the application of the '925 patent on infills, though.  From my reading of the '925 patent, the description of the patent, including the included drawings, seems to be concentrated on controlling the gaps that form between the extruded material - the "porosity" - where the part is supposed to be solid.  Although not specifically in the claim, the description talks about the ability of the part to out-gas through the part walls during molding.  The described intent of the '925 does not seem to address the intent of variable infill percentages -- as the infill parameter does not control the alignment of the extruder path of solid fills or perimeters.  Now, a broad reading of claim 1 could support Stratasys's position that infilll are "pores".  But it feels like a bit of a stretch.  

The '058 patent is a fairly broad patent that, if I read correctly, lays the first claim (as I understand it) as: deposit "melted" plastic so that it's still melted, have melted plastic build on top of a layer below and move the extruder to build the desired shape, and cool the "melted" plastic so that it solidifies.  Additional claims basically says by controlling the temperatures around where the extrusion occurs, and controlling the temperature of the extruded plastic, you minimize part deformation.  It doesn't explicitly call out the heated bed, or a heated build chamber, but it broadly describes controlling the temperature of the extruded plastic and the areas surrounding where extrusion is happening. If this patent stands, it pretty much locks up FFF for a little while yet.  '058 issued in 1997, so it should be expiring soon.

The '124 patent basically describes the hot end as we know it.  The main claim is on the use of a hot-end for 3D printing - plastic goes in, gets heated up, and squirts out the other end.  If it wasn't narrowed to 3D printing, it probably would not have passed, as plastic welding tools (AFAIK) predates hotends for 3D printing.  The following claims then goes into further details to protect increasingly more specific implementations.  

The '239 seam hiding patent seems to be basically about lead-in/lead-out of the extrusion path.  Like the '124, the claim is written to narrow the scope to 3D printing.  It seems to me like there's a chance someone could have used a G-code generator that did a lead-in/lead-out, used it for 3d printing -- but whether that translates into demonstrable prior art is a whole other matter.

AFAIK, IMHO, IANAL. YMMV, et cetra.  But my take from my (not quite so quick, but definitely not comprehensive) reading...

[KM Design]

This is the best article I've seen on this so far - http://makezine.com/2013/11/27/stratasys-sues-afinia-ramifications-for-the-desktop-3d-printing-industry/

KM

[lovethepirk]

I took a look at some of those patents briefly.  Looks like '925 runs out in 2015 and '058 in 2017.  I wish I knew more about patent law, but from my knowledge this looks like it could be expensive for anyone dancing near these patents.

I read Stratasys wiki page and if correct they purchased some patents from IBM in 1995. 

[MBuser]

All the more reason to consider a FF or other non-US based printer. 

[Dan Newman]

On 01/12/2013, 2:07 AM, MBuser wrote:
> All the more reason to consider a FF or other non-US based printer.

Keep in mind that MBI's parent company Stratasys is not a US company. Their
headquarters are in Rehovot, Israel. They do maintain a N. American headquarters
in the US in Minnesota. Like any company playing the patent game, they have
filed patents in the US. But they likely have filed for their patents in other
jurisdictions as well.

Dan

[Jay]

Wait....there's patents in China???

:)

Jay