The Law & The Prophets/Profits

RepRap
The Replicating Rapid Prototyper

Open-Source
Artificial Selection
Improvements posted back onto the Web
Old Machines can produce new designs
Breeding – Faster, cheaper more reliable, accurate, higher replication rates
Evolution

Lack of Control
140 Upgrades since release
Mini Mendel, Sarrus Linkage
Materials -Currently Thermoplastics
PLA, ABS, HDPE, LDPE…
Limited Material Properties
Future Development

Future Development
New Materials
Increased replication count
Manufacture more functional parts
Pastes
Most versatile category of materials
Ceramics

Multi-Materials
Enables graded, directional or functional properties
PCB's – Direct extrusion of Solder / Silver Loading of Pastes
Substantial reductions in part count
Easier to assemble
Tweezers

I Am The Law
Personal Manufacturing and
The Long Arm
(European version...)

Relevant Laws
Trademarks and passing-off
Unregistered and registered design
Copyright
Patent

Trademarks and
Passing Off
If make something including a trademark, or
If you try to pass it off
You are a bad person.

(Un)Registered Design
Components only protected if they can be seen
No protection for technical function
The “must fit” exception
The “restore appearance” exception

Copyright
Surface images and figurines
Excludes industrial prototypes
Design documents copyright, but... …using them is not an infringement
Star Wars knitting patterns
25 year limit after first industrial use
`...“sculpture” includes a cast or model made for purposes of sculpture...' [s.4 CDPA 1988]

Patent
20-year term
Private use not-for-gain is exempt
Experimental use is exempt Public use (e.g. in a school) infringes
Supplying the means infringes

The Law
You can't infringe trademarks
You can't forge (pass off)
You can't make copyright figurines
You can't include copyright artwork
You can't sell patented items
You can pretty much do anything else...
S Bradshaw, A Bowyer and P Haufe, "The Intellectual Property Implications of Low-Cost 3D Printing", (2010) 7:1
SCRIPTed 5, http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/script-ed/vol7-1/bradshaw.asp

Revolutionizing fabrication together!

RepRap's basic elements
Open Source
Community
Personal Fabrication
“Platform technology”
Self-replicating

Of democratization of personal fabrication
through self-replication machines
Impact
Image by Shane Willis

Impact
“Freedom to copy software is an important right because it is easy now – any computer can do it.
“Freedom to copy hardware is not as important, because copying hardware is hard to do.”
– Richard Stallman on Linux Today, 1999

It is important
“Easy, anyone can do it”
1. Any computer can copy software
2. Anyone has a computer
FOR SOFTWARE:

It is important
“Easy, anyone can do it”
1. Any fabricator can copy hardware
2. Anyone has a fabricator
FOR HARDWARE:
Driven by:
Low cost
Ease of use
Capabilities
Discovery of applications
Word-of-mouth
Etc.

Is hardware hard to copy?
Not inherently, we just need sophisticated tools.
It is not perceived as hard to copy!
In the RepRap community, MORE hardware than software innovations are “copied”.

Community growth

Community growth
~ 10 x
2004
2010
2006
2008

Community growth
~ 10 x
(log scale)
2004
2010
2006
2008

Numbers
Back of a napkin calculation:
SS * Mpp / FoP * Mgrowth ^ Months = no. of RepRap
* Sampled in March 2010.

Numbers (cont'd)
The population is expected to be roughly 10 times bigger than the sample.
But even if it's 5 or 20 times bigger, we're only off by 6 months!
Note that: On the left in the log scale graph, results are easily distorted.
The average operators has 1.5 distinct types of 3D printer.
Number of RepRaps out there is roughly 3800 (e.g. 1 Mendel and 2 Darwins count as 2 distinct machines)

What is driving this exponential growth?
What does this exponential growth drive?

Toys (for all ages)

Content or innovations?
Personal 3D Printer
Robot modules or even complete robots
Micro 'factories' and complete 3D printers

Parts for self assembling systems that can be 3D printed
Content or innovations?

Open Source Fusion
powered by
3D printed parts

Conclusions
PF is a critical collaboration platform for open hardware
We will have PF in our homes
More and more, WE will be the CREATORS of our futures
The economics of physical goods will change very radically