Personalized Manufacturing and 3D-Printing are not compatible with Intellectual Property Rights

Excerpted from Joren DeWachter:

“A key characteristic of the Intellectual Property system, as it currently exists, is that it is very closely linked to the manufacturing processes of the Industrial Revolution.

A patent (the right to exclude others to manufacture or distribute a product or use a production process) only makes sense if you make the same product over and over again, in the same or similar way.

In a world where manufacturing becomes personalized, patents effectively become completely useless – because patents need standardized manufacturing in order to have any meaning (let alone value).

The same is true for other IP rights. What could possibly be the point of registering a design, if it takes any person on their PC with some basic training an hour or so to modify it enough to steer clear of possible infringement, and then they can manufacture that design in their own home? The return on investment in filing a design becomes pretty horrendous.

Copyright, as I have stated many times, is a complete misfit for the digital age. It is based on assumptions that were true in the 19th century, such as high cost of copying, control of distribution chain etc.

Those are simply not true anymore. But copyright is also particularly badly designed (pun intended) for personalized manufacturing based on digital files.

Copyright, in theory, applies to the design itself (to the extent it is not merged to the function), and to the digital file carrying the information necessary to print the product. But copyright does not apply to the function of the print, or the function of what is being printed.

And again, how can you possibly enforce copyright in a standardized product, when the value of 3D printing is in the personalization – i.e. that bit which would fall outside copyright protection in the first place?

I think it is a key aspect that is not well understood by IP professionals. 3D printing will personalize manufacturing.

And personalized things fall outside IP, because IP is based on principles of standardized manufacturing/copying.

After all, when was the last time you heard about the estate of Jimi Hendrix sue someone because they have as a ringtone the intro to “Hey Joe”? In theory, every ringtone is a breach of copyright.

But copyright can’t handle personalized things – so, for ring tones, it has become irrelevant. Is that the way forward for all IP?”

1 Comment Personalized Manufacturing and 3D-Printing are not compatible with Intellectual Property Rights

  1. AvatarDon

    You need to learn how to quote properly, then how to give attribution in a better way. Can’t you shorten the quotes and share your own thoughts? P2P doesn’t mean throwing out the rules dof grammar, or of copyright.

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