8
IPreview
summer
2015
Personal
3D printing:
How can design
owners protect
themselves?
Patents can protect the functional features of a 3D
product, provided that those features in combination
are new and provide a technical advantage over
products that were available before the filing date
of the patent. Once granted (after examination for
compliance with these requirements), patents have a
duration of 20 years from filing. Patents can cover not
only the final product, but also methods and systems
for manufacturing the product.
UK patent law permits private and non-commercial
use of a patented product or method, and so patents
are of limited use in pursuing private domestic users of
3D printers. However, in most cases the patent owner
will not want to pursue individual domestic users, but
will instead be keen to stop the problem at source,
by targeting providers of file sharing sites that enable
users to download the files required for home 3D
printing of products, and large-scale commercial users
of 3D printers. Patents can be potent weapons in the
fight against these kinds of commercial organisations.
For example, a patent can be directly infringed by
supply of the CAD file to a user, provided that the
patent includes sufficient information describing how
the product could be manufactured using 3D printing
technology, and a claim covering files suitable for use
by a 3D printer. Your patent attorney will be able to
advise you of the type of wording required.
A UK patent may also be indirectly infringed by
providers of file sharing sites, when they supply or
offer to supply a CAD file for an infringing product
to users in the UK. This is because the CAD file may
be considered to be “means relating to an essential
element of the invention, for putting the invention into
effect”, as is required by the part of the UK Patents
Act that defines indirect (or secondary) infringement.
However, this section also requires that the alleged
infringer knows, or that “it is obvious to a reasonable
person in the circumstances, that those means are
suitable for putting, and are intended to put, the
invention into effect in the UK”. This can give the file
sharing site provider some room to argue that the
CAD file was not intended for use in the UK, and can
make negotiations or eventual litigation more complex
in the event of a dispute.
In the last edition of IP Review, we considered the issue
of how design owners could protect themselves against
the potential threat of unauthorised reproduction of their
designs using 3D printers, focusing on the protection
offered by registered and unregistered designs. In this
article we consider how patents can provide an additional
or alternative layer of protection for design owners.
