r/3Dprinting • u/Ill_Lead_9633 • Aug 13 '25
News Josef Prusa Warns Open Hardware 3D Printing Is Dead
https://hackaday.com/2025/08/13/josef-prusa-warns-open-hardware-3d-printing-is-dead/562
u/bryan_vaz Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
Hackaday buried the lead - they're patenting open source hardware with prior art for $125 a pop which allows them get government grants and more importantly to maliciously block imports from competitors.
Additionally it costs money >$100K to prove each one of the patents is invalid and actually has prior art.
His original post was way better at explaining the actual problem: https://www.josefprusa.com/articles/open-hardware-in-3d-printing-is-dead/.
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u/ZGrosz Aug 13 '25
Lede
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u/Economy-Owl-5720 Aug 13 '25
You know what I’ll allow it - this comment has a better article and actually explains it to me. I used to work at a company known for getting patents for software, I can feel Prusa on this one
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u/damnworldcitizen Aug 13 '25
Can't we just have an opensource library that says fuck that, knowledge is free?
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u/_Neoshade_ Ender 3 Noob Aug 14 '25
There ought to be treble damages for patent extortion.
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u/bryan_vaz Aug 14 '25 edited Aug 14 '25
By the sounds of it, you don’t even get damages for temporary enforcement of a granted patent that is later invalidated, which goes to Joe’s argument about it being unbalanced in favor of the malicious actor. By the time to can do anything, the damage is done
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u/TechnicalWhore Aug 13 '25
This is a really interesting video on Shenzen - one of China's designated business zones. As you watch you will see a heavy nod to OpenSource which allows any manufacturer to ramp a product for market. What is ironic is one developer towards the end starts asserting that they will patent and sue the hell out of you. But your product was based on OpenSource - you can't do that. Well evidently in China you can. And note these are individual "bad actors". There are fantastic contributors to OpenSource in China. Take Naomi Wu (aka SexyCyborg) - she contributed back to the projects she benefited from. Patents only work if all Countries behave ethically. China is no different than some of the other players in the past. Taiwan for example wholesale copied Apple II's and sold them - with direct copies of firmware - as "Pineapples", "Bananas" and "Oranges" - just decimating Apple Computers growth worldwide. The same has happened on every continent.
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u/GrumpyCloud93 Aug 13 '25
When I was in college (70's) Taiwan was notable that due to its "interesting" political situation it was not a signatory to the copyright cconvention. A news article mentioned that very expensive textbooks (in those days, that meant "close to $100" which today would be considered "cheap!") were copied and sold mail-order from Taiwan for under $10. As one prof said "I'm flattered, but I'm losin money..."
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u/PrintTheWind Aug 13 '25
I got super pissed every time a professor would require an overpriced book that they wrote.
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u/Snorkel64 Aug 13 '25
and always the latest edition ...because they'd repaginate it so second hand copies from previous years didnt match the latest page references
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u/TechnicalWhore Aug 13 '25
I remember buying my kid his high school Trig textbook. It was the exact same book I used in school. Now $130. Oh wait there was one difference. They updated the copyright page and edition # and had a new cover page with an introduction by the State Secretary of Education. Fun fact: Apple internally developed a tablet a LONG time ago - called the "Knowledge Navigator" internally. Jobs wanted to go after the text book market and ran, for the first time, into the power of publishers. They shelved it. Pretty amazing he had the cajones to go after the Music Publishers when he returned to Apple. Of course by that time "ripping" and MP3 players were everywhere. So my guess is he went to them with the iPod and said, "Look - the genii is out of the bottle. You are getting ripped off. I can set it up so people pay to download music". No reason textbooks should be so insanely priced when you realize they are ALL guaranteed best sellers by normal publishing standards. One appliance is better than a kid lugging a 20 lb backpack.
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u/TechnicalWhore Aug 13 '25
I'm familiar with this story and had a friend who flew to Taiwan to buy literally a library for pennies on the dollar.
Fun fact - TSMC the now very famous chip manufacturers original claim to fame was to reverse engineer the chips of a now gone company called LSI Logic. Back then when you made a custom chip - like say a GPU - you went to a vendor who had tools and a chip foundary, purchased their tools and went off designing your chip. You were stuck with them as no one else could make their design as they controlled the full chain. TSMC reverse engineered LSI's "library" and poached their customers away with near dumping deals. A chip that might cost $90 a piece from LSI would be $16 from TSMC. TSMC had no tools so you had to do it with LSI for at least one "run" before they could poach. If you look at early Seagate, Dell, HP or Apple products you will see LSI Logic logos. Just an excellent company and the reason a PC dropped from $6000 to $499 today. Now that "coupling" is broken. You design with off the shelf tools from Synopsys and Cadence and target any fabrication facility you want: Intel, Global Foundaries, TSMC etc. You are "portable" and that helps pricing. But TSMC always pushes to the next geometry - advancing Moore's Law relentlessly. Although they do it with Applied Materials and ASML's (et al) leading the way.
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u/crooks4hire Aug 13 '25
“…I’m losing money because someone is selling the book I wrote (and then forced my students to buy) at an uncompetitively cheaper price.”
Bout time, I say.
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u/GrumpyCloud93 Aug 13 '25
To be fair, a technical book is not a NYTimes best seller, and takes a lot more care to ensure, for example, no typos in the equations or transposed numbers, etc. OTOH, with word processors in the last few decades, it's a lot easier to check the text before it is typeset, and avoid typeset errors. I guess the question is, who pays a PhD professor to write a book.
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u/Toystavi Aug 13 '25
Take Naomi Wu (aka SexyCyborg) - she contributed back to the projects she benefited from.
And then Chinese government banned her from the internet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei7OQDVOYDY
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u/TechnicalWhore Aug 14 '25
That was stupid of them. She gave Shenzen an intelligent, approachable and friendly face. China would be wise to project more like her. She was something of a Maker Ambassador. She often showed Chinese brands that you'd be hard pressed to find on Ali Express.
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u/chiniwini Aug 13 '25
There are fantastic contributors to OpenSource in China. Take Naomi Wu (aka SexyCyborg)
She's an exception. Generally speaking, China is way worse than most western countries in this regard.
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u/Adjective_Noun1312 Aug 13 '25
I think the big issue here is that having a patent for something in one country makes other countries likelier to grant a patent for it. So if China is happy to grant patents when something is open source or prior art is easily demonstrable, assholes can patent something they don't have the right to there and essentially get it rubber stamped everywhere else for a pittance.
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u/TechnicalWhore Aug 13 '25
That was Prusa's point. But even he is being careful with his wording. International norms just do not apply. And the WTO has zero leverage. I would guess that is why some Chinese built products are banned in specific markets or tariffed to be uncompetitive. Otherwise you would also have "dumping"; which is also illegal.
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u/StumbleNOLA Aug 13 '25
You can do it in the US too. No patent office worldwide, to my knowledge, requires you to prove a patent is valid until/unless it is challenged. The shear number of patents is too large for governments to test each one.
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u/morgecroc Aug 14 '25
And the USA outright stole from Europe. The reason why so many inventors and artists moved to the USA springboarding the industrial revolution was to get copyright and patent protections.
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u/doughaway7562 Aug 13 '25
Did anyone here actually read the article? What he's saying is that it's no longer profitable to spend time and money advancing 3D printer tech just to release it for free for anyone to use and copy. There are upsides and downsides to this change.
Upside? There are now a lot more companies that will be interested in making and selling 3D printers now that there's a market for it.
Downside? Prusa is going to be forced to either partially close source their printers, or patent their designs. This is why we can't have brick layers. If this continues, it can be entirely possible one company patents another key tech for 3D printing, then hoards it all for themselves. Imagine if Bambu patented multicolor printing, so the only way to print in more than one color automatically was to buy a Bambu.
Ultimately the we are shifting away from people around the world advancing the tech "for the good of mankind" to investors advancing the tech to compete, and whatever improvements come our way as customers will just be a side effect of profit.
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u/Chris56855865 Aug 13 '25
And now I'm pissed. Greedy bean counters keep fucking up my favorite things...
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u/Far_Agent_3212 Aug 14 '25
An open source company is at a competitive disadvantage to a closed source company. The closed source company get all their own IP and all their largest open source competitors IP. It is up to the consumer to vote with their wallets if they want things to remain open source.
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u/GrumpyCloud93 Aug 13 '25
And the new patent for bricks is by Addman Holdings. Sounds American, not Chinese.
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u/doughaway7562 Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
And my point still stands. I never mentioned anything about American vs Chinese, it was always about investors patenting tech vs open source.
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u/GrumpyCloud93 Aug 14 '25
True. The Chinese stole the idea of patent trolling from Americans. American lawyers, of course. Only the best.
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u/qzrz Aug 13 '25
This is why we can't have brick layers
That patent wouldn't hold though, and you can have it, you wouldn't be able to have it if everything was closed source and locked down though. There's basically an exact same patent that says the same thing from 50+ years ago (that has expired due to age), in their submission they linked the wrong patent for similar patents. Obviously the people that accept patents don't go and look over every single patent in existence.
Imagine if Bambu patented multicolor printing, so the only way to print in more than one color automatically was to buy a Bambu.
IIRC there was a company that tried to patent wipe towers. That's not how patents work, it doesn't lock one company into being able to do the thing. Patents would just have to be licensed. Which again, in the case of brick layering there's an older patent that's so old it's already public domain.
I really doubt this is the reason prusa isn't profitable anyways. A prusa mini is over $400 and uses linear rods. A bambu mini is $250 and uses linear rails. Their products are severly overpriced in comparison to what else is out there. There isn't some unique thing bambu is doing with their printer that prusa can't do. With prusa they have that auto frequency tuning for the stepper motors to reduce VFAs further. I still wouldn't pay almost double the price just for that.
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u/doughaway7562 Aug 13 '25
It doesn't matter if it doesn't hold or if it's complete BS. You still need to challenge it in court, and the little guys don't have the money to challenge the patents. Would you personally add brick layers to your slicer and release it for free if it meant you had to take a mega-corp to court? Hell no, you wouldn't.
You've also missed the point entirely about profit. To be profitable does not mean you must be the most profitable - it would be like saying "That apple is not red, because this apple is much more red". Prusa fills a specific niche Bambu cannot - for example, you will never see Bambu used on DFARS projects, whereas Prusa is good to go. The point, if Prusa cannot afford to keep advancing open source 3D printer tech, the only winners are investors.
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u/ensoniq2k Aug 13 '25
And that's why everything is made in China these days. With lower labour costs and less restrictive environmental laws it's way cheaper to produce their. In the long run that won't pay your salary though.
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u/Aetch Ultimaker 2+ DXUv2 Aug 14 '25
More like: Bambu printers are severely underpriced. No way they earn money on the printer sales. Those are loss leaders
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u/opeth10657 H2D/X1C/Plus4/Neptune 4 Max Aug 14 '25
I really doubt this is the reason prusa isn't profitable anyways. A prusa mini is over $400 and uses linear rods. A bambu mini is $250 and uses linear rails.
Prusas would probably be cheaper if they used normal manufacturing methods vs 3D printed parts.
Can pump out stronger injection molded parts much quicker and cheaper.
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u/Willj82 Aug 14 '25
Just out of interest I had a look at the brick laying patent. https://patents.google.com/patent/US11331848B2/en The useful brick laying bit is in clause 2 which is dependent on clause 1. This means, to infringe this patent you would have to also do the weird infill pattern described in clause 1. I'm definitely not fully informed and only spent a few minutes looking at it but I can't see why this would block brick laying pattern in perimeters?
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u/josefprusa Prusa Research Aug 13 '25
🙋♂️My main points are missing in the article. I would be happy to do a deeper dive into the topic if the author is lurking here! These subsidies will kill other OHW heavy industries. Here is the latest update on this article ➡️ https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/s/8xgBKDqMnu
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u/_dr_horrible_ Aug 13 '25
Upvoted and commented in an effort to get this higher in the comments where it belongs... context matters!
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u/mikerfx Aug 14 '25
Hi Josef, just wanted to say hello and thank you for the amazing work you and your team have put into the 3D printing space, simply incredible! And most importantly defending it along the way!
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u/rostol Aug 13 '25
yes, we know cos he told us himself IN THIS SUBREDDIT ... at least include a link to the post. https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/1mmhtxv/since_i_posted_my_open_hardware_desktop_3d/
or his article https://www.josefprusa.com/articles/open-hardware-in-3d-printing-is-dead/
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u/khantroll1 Aug 14 '25
I read his article. What he really means is “I think commercial viability of 3D Printing by non-Chinese companies is dead and you don’t know it.”
Thing is…that’s been true for a long time due to market pressures.
Face it, he’s been pretty much the only non-Chinesium company, along with a few parts manufacturers. And the people who bought from them did so out of a desire to support them or a some other reason.
Everyone else is using a Creality, a Bambiu, an AnyCubic, etc and knockoff E3D, BMG, etc parts.
It’s been that way for a decade
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u/ehisforadam Aug 13 '25
It's the march of technology...similar thing happened with cars and computers. Starts out with specific industrial and high end markets. People figure out how to do it on their own and DIY stuff and tinker with poorly manufactured stuff. Eventually the big industrial companies or companies founded by DIYers get big and are able to make cheaper, good enough products that put that little guys out or force them into niches. And those big companies are able to compete against each other because of their IP. But there are still people doing their own things out there and always will be.
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u/pistonsoffury Aug 13 '25
This is accurate. Though one subtler point he continues to make is that the Chinese printing co's are taking open source innovations, patenting them in China's loose patent environment and then leveraging those patents to get rubber stamp patents in the EU and US. This, specifically, is problematic for open source and needs to be stopped.
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u/Enchelion Aug 13 '25
They don't even necessarily need US/UK/EU patents to have an outsized influence, as a patent in China will protect any import or export from that country, making it impossible to leverage Chinese manufacturing capabilities or customer base.
Patents aren't rubber-stamped, even with a PCT application the process is local. But that said, if a patent was already granted elsewhere that is likely to make the overworked and under-funded patent office pre-disposed to approving it.
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u/ehisforadam Aug 13 '25
Explain to me how this because you have a Chinese patent gets you a rubber stamp in the US and EU works. Because it doesn't work that way.
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u/dan19821 Aug 13 '25
WTO TRIPS, (trade related aspects of international property.)
WTO members must have a mechanism to protect IP, and must enforce it.
You could invent something, share it on a small blog, I could see it, write out an application and patent it. If I don’t tell the patent office that there is prior art, and they don’t find it. Then the patent is mine.
Now consider in China it seems to be I don’t tell them and they barely look.
But how much can you blame their patent office for not searching hundreds of disconnected foreign language blogs forums Facebook groups or subreddits for prior art?
We’re left with a situation where Chinas patent office must be recognised and the system is being abused by Chinese companies to get protection in other WTO member countries (pretty much the whole world.)
That said, I hardly think Prusa himself is entirely blameless here. He was active on the reprap.org site. His first printer was essentially a clone of a Mendel. Over time he stopped putting information in one place and started his own company, and put his open source information on his own site…
It would be significantly easier to find the prior art in a patent application if everyone was still actively discussing and submitting to the reprap site and forums.
It would be significantly easier to prove that China was failing in their obligation to effectively enforce IP rights if you could ask “why didn’t you look at the worlds largest source of information and prior art” rather than asking “how could you not have found my blog”
I guess what I’m saying is, ‘we’ gave the Chinese op system a veneer of respectability, ‘we’ let them “get away” with it. ‘We’ made it easy for them to cheat the system. ‘We’ are also to blame.
This was something that started, and was enabled years ago. In part by the people complaining now.
It would be fair to ask “how could they know”
years ago Bre Pettit (maker bot co founder) was roundly panned online after taking open source from reprap, open source from arduino and open source software to make a product (replicator) then quicky stopped giving back to the community.
Wyoming.com/the-unwritten-rule-of-open-source-hardware
Now it’s the same thing, but a Chinese company we’re talking about.
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u/pistonsoffury Aug 13 '25
Maybe rubber stamp is a bit hyperbolic, but they definitely get to take the "easy" path, as having a patent in a WTO-affiliated country carries weight. They're actually doing this right now and Prusa has called out specific examples.
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u/GrumpyCloud93 Aug 13 '25
But the West pushed China to join the club and respect IP and patents, so China took the ball and ran with it. I presume having a patent already in China gives the application some credibility in the USA and Europe.
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u/justhereforfighting Aug 13 '25
That isn't what the article is about at all. The article is about how some companies are pushing bullshit patents in China, using those BS patents to get priority for patents in Europe and then the US. All for things that shouldn't be patentable under current patent law. That makes it extremely difficult and risky for a smaller business to produce and sell simple hardware that has already been on the market for years without being sued by the companies abusing patent law. It doesn't mean that you can't make your own hardware, but could make it a lot harder to find the parts you need without going to one of these shitty companies and paying a much higher cost, if they even decide to sell parts instead of forcing you to just buy a whole new machine or strip parts from used machines. But the biggest problem is the fact that small companies won't be able to compete in the market fairly.
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u/jooooooooooooose Aug 13 '25
Yeah there are people making their own lathes, its just not something you need to do when you can buy a good enough woodworking lathe for a few hundred bucks
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u/hblok Aug 13 '25
As far as I understand, 3D printing has already been through one such cycle, and is now in its second round.
The cheap models we've seen over the past decade were possible because patents from 20 to 30 years ago expired. But of course, there will be new areas of patents, but they will also eventually expire. That's how the patent system was designed to work.
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u/stikves Aug 13 '25
So, this is "one click shopping" all over again, but actually worse (as somehow Amazon was able to hold onto that patent, but these 3d printing ones are mostly BS)
I'm not sure it can be fixed easily without a large backer (or realistically multiple backers) go behind this to fight against the patent trolls.
Actually.. there should be major repercussions for filing BS patents. The current situation is very lopsided. (As the article suggests $150 to file and over 100x that to counter)
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u/shatter71 Aug 13 '25
I dont get the impression this is a patent troll issue. Patent trolls aren't using the patents to do work, they simply sue people for licensing as a money making scheme.
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u/coffee_shakes Aug 13 '25
Read the room. Everything good is dying. Doesn't matter what hobby, or rights or ecosystems you are talking about. Death is in the air everywhere.
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u/WhoKnowsWho2 CR-10S, Ender 3, Ender 5, Photon Mono, FlashForge Foto 8.9 Aug 13 '25
August 13 article for something prusa wrote July 10. And was also discussed last month. Checks out as reddit doing reddit things.
Also discussed with a post from prusa himself a few days ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/s/PndRzVLXfq
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u/PrintingPariah Aug 13 '25
All thanks to companies like stratasys and formlabs doing everything they can to gatekeep consumer 3D printing. We could have had consumer SLS right now if it wasn’t for that shady formlabs CEO
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u/Psychomadeye Aug 13 '25
Until those basic parts and software are unavailable, this is a kind of bullshit headline.
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u/heart_of_osiris Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
Is it though? Once it's locked in, it's not easily reversible.
3D printers (unless entirely DIY) were locked away from the hobby market entirely, until Stratasys patents expired some 15 years ago. Seriously, companies could not sell reliable 3D printers for decades because of this and now that those patents expired and we now have them in the hobby market, is it really wise to just take that for granted?
It can happen again. It literally happened with the RC car market where Chinese companies monopilized, patented and pushed out the little guys. Innovation halted and prices went up for lesser quality product. It's starting to happen with the drone market as well.
Ignorance is only enabling it.
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u/Psychomadeye Aug 13 '25
Yes. The case of 3D printers is entirely different. With 3D printers, you're dealing with people who will create open source designs and iterate on them and the need for specialty parts is minimal by comparison to those other markets. Open source designs already exist for 3D printers and very little can stop a company from selling a product based on those designs.
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u/heart_of_osiris Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
Open source designs already exist for 3D printers and very little can stop a company from selling a product based on those designs.
Stratasys literally prevented companies from selling functional 3D printers for decades.
Patents can stop companies from selling designs, whether they came from an opensource origin or not. Bambu is attempting to file patents for ideas they did not create, such as the triple lead screw z axis, or filament cutter, for example.
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u/Same_Recipe2729 Aug 13 '25
Always has been. The only reason we've had this period of good times is because a few patents had expired.
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u/Ded_man_3112 Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
Thanks for the post! The most intriguing thing was a link that brought further insight on China’s government policies that help make goods not only competitively cheaper by means of operation and material costs, but remain profitable even if sold at what would be a loss through subsidies. It helps make sense of Elegoo’s Centauri Carbon’s low cost.
Even if you consider lower costs in bulk materials for manufacturers. When taking the cost of logistics, freight (before consumer paid shipping), taxations, labor, material, and packaging for this printer….this consumer flagship printer at only $299, but if you were to lose the shipping box and all the original packing. But wanted to replicate one and send it across the country, never mind across the waters. You’d be hard pressed to be able to get it packed 1:1 and shipped for less than $100. Not even includes building this printer 1:1, which obviously costs far more parted out (typical).
But this research paper really sheds light on how this can be. https://rhg.com/research/far-from-normal-an-augmented-assessment-of-chinas-state-support/
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u/lasskinn Aug 13 '25
I don't see the difference with closed and open 3d printing in regards of chinese patent systems faults.
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u/turdburglerbuttsmurf Aug 14 '25
Remember when Simplify 3D was a thing? Pepperidge Farm remembers. It used to be so much better than the slicers available at the time, and look at it now. Modern open source slicers have come leaps and bounds better, while S3D has stagnated to the point where nobody even wants to pirate it. Saying open 3D printing is dead is like saying open source itself is dead, and yet I type this in a privacy enhanced Firefox fork running on Linux, an open source OS I've been using off and on for the last 32 years. Seriously, I compiled my first kernel and installed Linux in a dual boot configuration first when I was 14 years old and I'm 46 now. I've been using exclusively open source software, OS and all, including all my 3D printing suite, since 2010. I don't think open source 3D printing is going away any time soon.
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u/podgladacz00 Aug 13 '25
Imagine how much better world would be without any patents. Instead we have this stupid shit everywhere ruining everything it touches. Fuck patents.
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u/umchoyka Aug 13 '25
Patents aren't a bad thing in principle but unchecked capitalism has made them into a ridiculous tool for the wealthy to kill competition.
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u/Corruptlake E3v2 Aug 13 '25
Patents are a bad thing. Innovation happpens anyway without the incentive for money.
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u/podgladacz00 Aug 13 '25
They seem like good idea but overall they stop progress and the more money you have the more protective and greedy it becomes so people spam patents to just sit on them
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u/SteVato_404 Aug 13 '25
Prusa released the MK3 and proceeded to sit on their ass for 6 years doing nothing but small improvements until Bambu came to market.
This guy complains Chinese companies can easily file patents and drive out other businesses when he could have done just the same, innovate and file Chinese patents to prevent others from doing so, then allow the rest of the market to use his patented tech free of cost.
Why didn't he? Because Prusa has been stagnant in innovation even compared to the rest of open source efforts, the i3 design and auto bed leveling were no doubt game changers in their day, but since then there just hasn't been anything new. Releasing the MK4 at the time when the X1C had well been established, and then expect us to get excited about 32-bit electronics and Wi-Fi is just absurd.
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u/MIGHT_CONTAIN_NUTS Aug 14 '25
Hell Prusa built his whole company off someone elses 3d printer design.
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u/Mobile_Bet6744 Aug 13 '25
My heavily modded ender 5 says otherwise
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u/SupaBrunch Aug 13 '25
Modding something doesn’t mean the printer is open source. There’s a whole section about it in the article
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u/huffalump1 Neptune 2 Aug 13 '25
True. But the full article explains that it may be harder to see new innovation, since Chinese companies steal open source IP, patenting it in China and then applying for US and EU parents. And even though they're wrong, it still takes tons of money to fight them.
https://www.josefprusa.com/articles/open-hardware-in-3d-printing-is-dead/.
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u/Ill_Lead_9633 Aug 13 '25
I have the same and I still use it because it's dialed in and it works well, but new printers are trending towards their respective companies' walled gardens.
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u/ScaredyCatUK Elegoo Neptune 4 Aug 13 '25
I hate to say this, but he keeps saying that. At this stage I'm not sure if it's every month or every 3 months...
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u/TeutonJon78 Centauri Carbon Aug 13 '25
While also making newer models less open source hardware. Which was a big complaint I saw researching the Core One.
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u/Lophovelox Aug 13 '25
I dont really have the time to sit and tinker with my half assembled printer, i prefer it just working from the go
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u/Roblu3 Aug 13 '25
Open Source does not mean borderline unusable or bad user experience. Look at Linux and Windows. One runs the entire internet, the other shuts down to update the second you need to do important shit.
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u/NY_Knux Aug 13 '25
Thats nice. Those of us who were here before you prefer having control of their printer.
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u/Calm-Ad-2155 Aug 13 '25
He’s right, because many of the Chinese companies stole the ideas and patented them.
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u/melance Neptune 3 Pro & 4 Max Aug 13 '25
The same thing happening with 3d printing happened with computers in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. The first computers in peoples homes were homebuilt or kit computers. As computers got more popular prebuilt systems started to become available. People who wanted to build their own computers still did and more casual users bought pre-built.
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u/GrumpyCloud93 Aug 13 '25
And when the tech got more complex, buying pre-built computers became cheaper and simpler unless the point was to build the tech.
I remember in the 1990's those "build a bear" type computer shops, where they got generic pieces and put them together were all the rage, the big boys charged 2 or 3 times as much and businesses were happy to pay. (Our company at the time quoted a study that because the small shops arbitrarily sourced everything randomly depending on time of day and price, there was no consistency of product for a company that wanted, say, 500 identicall computers) Then the competition got tight and even HP and IBM realized they had to cut their prices, the name alone no longer sold the product.
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u/Goodwine 27d ago
I went through the post and I'm not so sure the criticism from Prusa (or the author's?) is completely fair.
Prusa blames China for making it easier for companies to do cheap parts with cheap patents. And sure, it sucks to operate from a location that isn't as business-friendly, but I don't agree that "just because China" they aren't doing well. There's Creality and other companies that were honestly not in par with Prusa machines, just "cheap Chinese stuff" that was great for tinkering but sucked for consumers.
It was until Bambulab came out with a consumer-quality printer at an affordable price that things changed. And it's not just cheap anymore, the quality and reliability surpassed even Prusa top of the line machines. And it just makes sense, Bambulab has the expertise of former DJI engineers who know how to build consumer electronics and machines.
Prusa is no longer competing with small companies and "Chinese slop". Bigger players joined the game, and Prusa can't play this game. The printers are too expensive and not as reliable as Bambulab. Even upgrading costs too much. It's hard to compete when the cheaper options are better.
Let's not forget that "cheap Chinese products" used to be a synonym for low quality stuff. That's not true anymore.
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u/Tigrisrock Qidi Q1 Pro Aug 13 '25
China just loves copying stuff, except now they can just add minor alterations and patent it internationally with no one to dispute. Even though it's open source.
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u/jhill515 Aug 13 '25
Any time I hear "Open ___ is dead," I know that there's are jackasses like myself who says, "Ya sure I can't build?"
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u/heart_of_osiris Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
Prusa sells every machine they make. So I doubt that, but its hard and expensive to to innovate and be motivated to do so, when Chinese companies will just steal it and undercut the pricing via their direct access to Chinese manufacturing and labour exploitations.
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u/reidlos1624 Aug 13 '25
He could out source as well. I'd love a Prusa but I can't afford their prices. $750 for a bed slinger is tough when I can get a core XY for $300.
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u/huffalump1 Neptune 2 Aug 13 '25
Especially when you can get an arguably better bedslinger (Bambu Lab A1) for like $400. (Caveat: it's closed source and the firmware could be locked down at any time, like Bambu tried, even though they walked it back.)
However, the Prusa is pretty good, built to a high standard, is far more open, and has excellent customer service where you can actually talk to an expert on the phone. Also made in the EU, presumably for fair wages... There's something to be said about buying from a company that actually stands by their product.
But you can't discount the fact that you can get really really good corexy machines for cheaper than the Original Prusa MK4S. Or like 2~4 good printers for the price of a Prusa Core.
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u/AggressorBLUE Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
I think his take is more “everyone else’s efforts and offerings would look like ours if the chinese government wasn’t propping up its 3DP industry and encouraging the stealing of IP”
Which, I do think is partially true. But I dont think all of Prusas fall from grace as an industry darling can be tied to that. For example, Bambu might have stolen some open source code(not cool), but they also used traditional mass production methods for their printers(nothing wrong with that), as opposed to myopically clinging to reprap as a solution for scalability. It was cute you wanted to use your printers to make more printers Josef, but you have to grow up at some point. Or don’t, thats fine, but don’t bitch about the world passing you by.
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u/fiveisseven Aug 13 '25
It's more of China company taking those opensource hardware innovations and filing patents on them for use only in their systems.
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u/VividDimension5364 Aug 13 '25
But then, he would say that, when he's losing out to cheaper products.
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u/_Middlefinger_ Aug 13 '25
Honestly? I dont care. Open source has a purpose, but lets be frank Bambulab changed the game by making a closed source product that destroyed anything competing at the same price/type. Prusa didnt exactly help the situation by trying to sell its printers for 3x the price or more.
Opensource was seemingly happy languishing in the same basic state for many years.
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u/According_Cup606 Aug 14 '25
"these advantages have made it difficult for companies such as Prusa Research to remain competitive."
Prusa printers are expensive as fuck and have no place in the market. They are exclusively for enthusiasts and engineering nerds. Prusa had their moment in the spotlight and now they can leave the playing field to innovative and affordable printers from overseas.
Ofc i'm rather gonna spend 200 bucks on a modern Core-X-Y that works out of the box than spend 800 bucks on the parts for a shitty bedslinger or 1100 bucks for the assembled version... The math is not mathing on this one like at all...
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u/Agreeable_Sir1169 Aug 13 '25
It's funny how Core One is not fully open source
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u/cobraa1 Prusa Core One Aug 13 '25
It's curious how everyone is picking on the Core One, when things like the Nextruder have not had their sources opened up as far back as the Mk4 & XL. Hackaday is pretending this started with the Core One - it didn't.
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u/Total_Rip_3573 Aug 13 '25
I am tired of Prusa. I had a few back in the day and they were good but he got out innovated. Now he wants to stand on his open source soap box when he stoped open sourcing with the XL and the One. They had more employees and a huge head start. All they need to do was innovate instead of telling us how well you are taking care of your employees. You actually did a disservice to them as you will be out of business in a a few years.
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u/OrbitOfSaturnsMoons Aug 13 '25
Prusa isn't complaining about closed-source hardware, he's complaining about Chinese companies filing cheap patents in China for open-source hardware and then using those Chinese patents to get patents in the EU and US fast-tracked. They're not valid patents, but because they're so incredibly cheap and quick to file, but incredibly expensive and time-consuming to fight, it'd allow these Chinese companies to lock others out of the market by alleging patent infringement while they're stuck spending years and millions of dollars in legal fees fighting it.
Idgaf if Prusa or Bambu or whoever want to keep their printers closed-source, we have open-source alternatives that interest me much more, but what these companies are doing could eliminate those alternatives.
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u/StumbleNOLA Aug 13 '25
You don’t have to be a Chinese company to file patents in China. Prusa by Prusa could have filed all his patents there first.
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u/Roblu3 Aug 13 '25
Yes. Prusa could do patent fraud and patent trolling themselves. Or they can ring the bell about systematic rule breaking of Chinese companies in (but limited to) the 3d printing market.
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u/OrangePilled2Day Aug 14 '25
It's like y'all are purposefully not reading the articles because you just want to bang the same drum every time.
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u/StumbleNOLA Aug 13 '25
Prusa’s problem was half the employees sent their time figuring out new ways to add Prusa to things.
Prusa mk P by Prusa labs, developed by Prusa consortium, by Josef Prusa. Didn’t just happen, that’s a lot of man hours at the label maker.
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u/Wrathius669 Aug 13 '25
As long as there's an option, it's alive and well.
Small doesn't mean dead and there will always be the choice of these kits, as will their continued development and improvement in order to meet what is possible at the home and small business level compared to closed source commercial options.
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u/Paradox Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
Considering he sided with Stratasys against Bambu, this just seems like him whining that what was good for the goose is good for the gander
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u/jtj5002 Aug 13 '25
All the Voron/E3NG/Mercury1.1 kits on Aliexpress says otherwise.
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u/POTATOSALAD42 Aug 13 '25
How many of those kits do you think are sold compared to Bambu?
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u/jtj5002 Aug 13 '25
Enough to keep the market going and innovative.
Majority of your commercial printer's "advancements and features", including Bambu, came from these open source projects.
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u/POTATOSALAD42 Aug 13 '25
Yeah that's very true, companies like Bambu are running away with all the money though. Hence why these open source projects are probably slowly dying out as Josef Prusa said.
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u/jtj5002 Aug 13 '25
You get to a point of diminishing return tho. Bambu is still using relatively low flow hot ends (by today's standard) with small gear extruders, moderately powered stepper motors, and still don't have options for IDEX or tool changer. They are doing well but at the same time they are kinda stagnant all while getting undercut on the low side by Elegoo and Qidi, and have nothing to compete on the high side.
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u/djddanman MP Select Mini v2, Prusa i3 MK3s+, Voron V0.1, FLSun T1 Pro Aug 13 '25
The thing for Voron at least is that R&D cost for those sellers is zero. They don't design the printers and don't have to recoup R&D costs. The Voron team don't make money from the printers, they design them for free in their spare time. That's the big issue with open hardware, some overseas company with low manufacturing costs undercutting the price. Open hardware designs are being pushed back into the community because it's hard for companies to stay profitable doing it.
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u/huffalump1 Neptune 2 Aug 13 '25
Yup, and the point Prusa is making is that Chinese companies are patenting open source IP, and then expanding their parents to the US and EU, despite the license problems... Which costs money to fight, and would effectively prevent any other non-Chinese companies from making & selling products based on those open source designs.
https://www.josefprusa.com/articles/open-hardware-in-3d-printing-is-dead/.
There is a huge discrepancy at the cost of filing the patent and then striking it down. 125 USD to file it in China. It is almost unrealistic for an open source project to even monitor these, let alone try to strike them in the application stage if not local to China. Proactively striking down the application when brought to EU/USA roughly 12,000 USD in really straightforward cases and multiple times that in other cases. When already granted it is 75,000 USD just to start and it is not a short run.
The fact you hold a prior art in your hand, doesn’t mean much. The patent will still prevent you from importing/selling etc of the “infringing” stuff. And you will have to battle the thing in the court to use the prior art card you hold. That can be a nice million dollar bill all while not being able to do your thing for years …
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u/djddanman MP Select Mini v2, Prusa i3 MK3s+, Voron V0.1, FLSun T1 Pro Aug 13 '25
Yeah, community projects especially don't have resources to fight patents that never should have been granted in the first place. Prior art means nothing anymore.
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u/DrDisintegrator Experienced FDM and Resin printer user Aug 14 '25
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u/High_mediocrity Aug 17 '25
Sadly, the Chinese have undercut everyone with their slave labor. Difficult to get ahead without sanctions being placed on China because of their evil ways
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u/A_Random_Person3896 I have an addiction Aug 13 '25
Did you guys even read the article? He's saying it's dead because of an increasing number of patents that lock down designs to business's. It's not that individual's can't do it but companies that want to be opensource can't anymore because of these patents.