Will 3D Printing End Intellectual Property Rights?
One of the most remarkable developments of the past few years has been 3D printing, a system that can literally print a solid object using only a design and some plastic polymers. The applications for such a device are seemingly endless. It can print cheap food for impoverished third world nations and solve world hunger! It can print cheap handguns and circumvent gun control legislation! The debate over its uses and abuses will most likely rage for several years to come. And now a new problem might emerge thanks to the 3D printer’s new scanning feature, the undermining of intellectual property rights.
John Hornick, an intellectual property lawyer in Washington, DC, is even more alarmist than that, claiming that 3D printers could bring “the demise of intellectual property.” New 3D printers that come equipped with scanners have the ability to copy the unique design of objects (for example, a child’s toy) and then print out a copy of that toy, effectively allowing them to cheaply reproduce copyrighted material. Hornick predicts that these 3D scanners and printers will hurt intellectual property in the same way that digital piracy has already hurt the music and film industries. After all, what’s to stop the market from being flooded with cheap knockoffs of patented products once the 3D printers become commonplace? Hornick feels that the market will be flooded and claims, “IP will be ignored and it will be impractical or impossible to enforce if you can print things away from control.” But are these claims as bad as Hornick says they are? Will 3D printing really destroy intellectual property rights?
Experts in the field are already skeptical that Hornick is too alarmist for a number of reasons. Some argue that 3D printer hype is extreme now but it will most likely die down in the next few years and not be nearly as big of a problem as Hornick paints it. Other’s point out that 3D printers are still far too expensive for any average person to own and it will be at least 2016 before they are anywhere near an affordable range. The time it will take for the printers to be a realistic consumer commodities will give intellectual property laws time to adjust in order to protect copyrighted and patented products.
But one of the biggest counterarguments is that, so far, 3D printing technology is far too delicate to be used to mass reproduce copyrighted objects and it is unlikely that it will ever be able to be used to undermine IP laws on a wide scale. Hornick is aware of this last argument but he disagrees with it, saying “They also say 3D printing will never be able to reach mass-production scale, and maybe that’s true. But I don’t think it matters, because if you can make what you need when you need it, then mass production won’t be needed.” It is certainly true that groundbreaking and revolutionary technologies have a tendency to wreak havoc on a society’s existing laws for a time. However, in the case of 3D printing it seems like there are numerous options for how to prevent widespread infringement on intellectual properties. There is the possibility of limiting the use of scanners or outfitting them with software that prevents them from scanning and printing material that it recognizes as being copyrighted. There’s even the possibility of having companies sell their own 3D blueprints for products to customers and letting the customers prints out the materials themselves, though this would raise tricky questions about how liable the companies would be if the product in the 3D printer turns out defective. Still, in these nascent stages of 3D printing, it seems premature to declare that it will kill intellectual property outright. Perhaps in time, intellectual property laws will find a way to integrate the 3D printer into the existing IP framework in a way that will help society without harming IP owners. There’s still plenty of time to figure out a way to make sure 3D printing won’t destroy IP.
Kevin James
Intern at
JAFARI LAW GROUP®, INC.