Political power grows out of the nozzle of a 3-D Printer.
Posted on 01/23/2014 8:58:16 AM PST by null and void
Stanford Law School
University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online, Vol. 162, No. 35, 2013
Abstract:
Though just in its infancy, 3-D printing seems poised to transform the goods we buy, the products we use, and the world we inhabit. A question frequently raised about 3-D printing, though, is how product liability law will apply to 3-D-printed goods. Tackling that important and timely question, this Essay applies contemporary product liability law to defective products from home 3-D printers. The analysis reveals that if home 3-D printing really does take off, PL litigation as we know it may well, in large measure, dry up. And if it doesn’t, the technology threatens to unsettle the theoretical justification for product liability law’s development.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 7
Accepted Paper Series
[Download paper at the site]
(paper obviously written by an academic, fully a third of each page is footnotes!)
Political power grows out of the nozzle of a 3-D Printer.
Link?
So why doesn’t someone just use the 3D printer, to print more 3D printers so you won’t have to buy them from the people selling them?
whoa! you just blew my mind!
I mean, in all the articles I read about this. I have never heard anyone talk about doing that.
Cool, so now we can use their 3D printer to print one of theirs also.
Such a system exists.
Right now there are several printers where you can print out most of the mechanical parts and roll your own.
There are still parts to buy, precision ground slides, nuts and bolts, electronics and such, but the bulk of the machine can be printed.
The limiting step is it is under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial ShareAlike license. That means you can make ‘em, but not sell ‘em.
Duplicative fade. Needs a better error correction algorithm and that won’t be as much of a problem.
OHHHH.........OK
One scenario he didn't address is the home hobbyist who made a cool widget at home, perfected the digital design to be generally printable, then made the design available for sale online for a nominal price to whomever (to make some pocket change). If the design turns out to be defective in some way (breaks from intended use due to improper engineering and injures one or more people) - can that person be successfully sued? I think the architect example most closely approximates this scenario. If an architect sells plans for a DIY home and it turns out the wiring plan overloads a particular circuit causing some of the homes to burn down - can the architect be sued?
I think with a little more understanding of the 3D market and technologies, and a little more thought - this could have been a much more helpful paper.
Agreed. Good place to start, though.
Lawyers and their bar associations are drooling over the feeding frenzy ahead. 3D printer folks, for the most part, will not have enough money to defend themselves against the monopolies, while all total, their properties will add up to quite a harvest.
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