3D Printing and Intellectual Property

Focuses on the novel issues raised for IP law by 3D printing for the major IP systems around the world.

Lucas S. Osborn (Author)

9781107150775, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 September 2019

242 pages
23.5 x 15.6 x 1.8 cm, 0.47 kg

'There is little written on this particular subject, so 3D Printing and Intellectual Property would be an excellent addition to a library with a focus on intellectual property materials.' Susannah Tredwell, Canadian Law Library Review

Intellectual property (IP) laws were drafted for tangible objects, but 3D printing technology, which digitizes objects and offers manufacturing capacity to anyone, is disrupting these laws and their underlying policies. In this timely work, Lucas S. Osborn focuses on the novel issues raised for IP law by 3D printing for the major IP systems around the world. He specifically addresses how patent and design law must wrestle with protecting digital versions of inventions and policing individualized manufacturing, how trademark law must confront the dissociation of design from manufacturing, and how patent and copyright law must be reconciled when digital versions of primarily utilitarian objects are concerned. With an even hand and keen insight, Osborn offers an innovation-centered analysis of and balanced response to the disruption caused by 3D printing that should be read by nonexperts and experts alike.

Introduction
1.3D printing technology's capabilities and effects
2. How 3D printing works and why it matters
3. Primer on intellectual property law
4. Can you patent a 3D printable file? (And why it matters)
5. Patents – direct infringement, individual infringement, and 'digital' infringement
6. Patents – indirect infringement and intermediaries
7. 3D printing and trademarks: the dissociation between design and manufacturing
8. Creativity and utility: 3D printable files and the boundary between copyright and patent protection
9. Design rights, tangibility, and free expression
10. DMFs and optimizing innovation incentives
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Computer architecture & logic design [UYF], Computer hardware [UK], Intellectual property law [LNR], E-commerce law [LNCB2], Comparative law [LAM]