Open Hardware Is Dead? A Blunt Reality Check on 3D Printing’s Patent Trap
Hello everyone. Let’s light this dumpster fire of a topic, because oh boy, it smells like burning plastic – and not the good, fresh-out-of-the-nozzle type. We’re talking about the ever-shrinking future of open hardware in 3D printing, dragged into the abyss not by bad engineering or lack of creativity, but by a delightfully toxic cocktail of patent trolling, industrial subsidies, and geopolitical chess games. Pop your safety goggles on – things are going to get messy.
The Death Rattle of Open Hardware
Remember when 3D printing was a sandbox for hobbyists, small startups, and actual innovators with a soldering iron and a dream? Yeah, that era is as dead as floppy disks. The last five years have turned the once-thriving landscape into a graveyard of extinct brands. While everyone was sipping coffee and arguing about nozzle diameters, Chinese subsidies quietly rolled in like a raid boss with infinite health regen.
By 2020, 3D printing was declared a “strategic industry” in China. What followed wasn’t innovation – it was industrial carpet bombing. Machines started selling cheaper than the parts required to build them. That wasn’t magic, it was state-subsidized economic warfare. Open hardware never stood a chance, because when your competitor’s respawn timer is set to immortality, you may as well throw your Prusa into the nearest scrap pile.
The Patent Spamocalypse
Here’s where it gets grotesque. In 2019, the big names in 3D printing filed 40 patents. Three years later, they collectively spat out 650. No, that’s not 650 meaningful innovations. That’s 650 pieces of weaponized paperwork designed to clog innovation like cholesterol in an artery. It’s patent spam, plain and simple – a buckshot strategy where you fire off everything, knowing a few rounds will hit and cripple actual inventors.
With $125 in China, you can file a patent. To fight it in the West? Try coughing up $75,000 just to sit at the table. Somewhere in there, David’s slingshot got repossessed.
The so-called “super deduction” makes this scam even juicier. File a patent, claim inflated R&D deductions, laugh all the way to the tax office. It doesn’t even matter if the patent is junk or a carbon copy of something that’s already existed. The validity checks are lax, so the incentive is to drown the world in patent filings and watch open hardware drown in red tape.
The Prior Art Lie
You might think, “But prior art exists, so surely it’ll save us!” Ha! That’s adorable. Prior art is like a medkit in a boss fight where your stamina meter is permanently set to zero. Sure, technically it works. But by the time you get to court, pay the lawyers, and wait for the bureaucratic dungeon crawl to play out, your project is already dead. The infringing patent blocks you from importing, selling, and moving forward. Games over, insert coin… only each “coin” is a six-figure legal fee.
Exploitation Disguised as Innovation
Let’s not sugarcoat it: this is exploitation of global IP treaties at a level so blatant it makes loot boxes look ethical. Patents are being filed for tech that’s blatantly open – sometimes even copied line-for-line from decade-old community projects. The MMU1 multiplexer from 2016? Slapped onto a shiny patent filing in China and Germany, and now knocking politely at America’s door. This isn’t progress. It’s daylight robbery wrapped in legal jargon.
Impact on Innovation
So where does this leave us? Right now, you might not feel the flames licking at your shoes. Patents take time to metastasize, and it could be five years before the lawsuits and import bans fully kick in. But make no mistake, the jaws are snapping shut. Open hardware projects are forced to divert resources into legal defense instead of actual creation. Community sharing – the beating heart of innovation – is now a liability without a battle plan.
Attempts at Survival
The response? Build “early warning teams,” draft new community licenses, and maybe even form organizations to push back against the swarm. Which, frankly, is like loading a Nerf gun to fend off a Panzer tank. But it’s either that, or lie down and let open hardware be smothered under a paper tsunami. Sad to say, protecting your designs has become a prerequisite for sharing them. Think about how backwards that is – guard it just to give it away. That’s where we’re at.
The Takeaway
This isn’t just about 3D printing. Every field of open hardware is being targeted by these “Made in China 2025” strategies. If you’ve got projects in the open circuit, laser cutting, or robotics spaces, you need to start watching filings like a hawk. Because what’s happening here isn’t a one-off – it’s the playbook. Once patents start stacking, undoing the damage will make Dark Souls look like Animal Crossing.
Final Verdict
So is open hardware dead? No, not yet. It’s more like a patient on life support while some corporate patent troll is rummaging through the wallet at the bedside. The community can fight, sure, but the battlefield is stacked, and the other side isn’t playing fair. My prognosis? The patient survives, but only if there’s radical cooperation and serious structural defense against this patent spam plague. If not, time of death: inevitable.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is entirely my opinion.
Article source: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?, https://www.josefprusa.com/articles/open-hardware-in-3d-printing-is-dead/
