3D printing & law: Innovation vs. intellectual property: and questions regarding design protection, copyright, patent law trademark

The 3D printing industry is revolutionising manufacturing, changing, simplifying and accelerating production processes. One day, 3D printing technology could be regarded as one of the greatest inventions in manufacturing technology since the Industrial Revolution. It opens up undreamt-of possibilities and could significantly change the way we think about intellectual property protection. Many of the new projects are intended to be open source, which means that the new designs and concepts are shared with others free of charge, allowing many people to benefit from them. Despite all the development opportunities and possibilities offered by this new technology, there are many critics who are concerned about their rights. This applies in particular to intellectual property rights, such as copyrights, patent rights, trademark rights and design rights, which they see as being threatened by the increasing spread of 3D printing. This book shows how intellectual property rights can be affected or even infringed by the process of 3D printing, and what private users - but also suppliers and 3D printer manufacturers - need to bear in mind in this regard.