Hello Hacker News ššš
Iāve done a little update on social since publishing of the article, let me copy paste it here.
Since I posted my āOpen Hardware is deadā article, youāve been asking me about āthat patentā š¤ I didnāt want you to miss the forest (thousands of filings since 2020) just because of one tree. But letās take a look now. In this case: the MMU multiplexer (we open sourced it 9 years ago). Anycubic (another IDG Capital-backed company) used the tactic of filing in China for an easy initial grant: CN 222407171 U ā”ļø DE 20 2024 100 001 U1 ā”ļø US 2025/0144881 A1. The playbook: file a Chinese utility model (10-year patent, same protections, lower examination, already granted) ā”ļø claim that priority in Germany (again as a utility model, already granted) ā”ļø file in the US. Cheap to file, but expensive and time-consuming to fight. I already wrote why prior art isnāt a magic wand that solves it immediately in my article ā¤µļø And there are many more, we just found a new juicy one š„
I am in the comments on hacker news here!
Original article ā¤µļø
Hi, FAB 2025 is still happening in Prague and it has been a wonderful event. Itās been great to meet so many people from our community at home, in Czechia! But during my chats with the attendeeās, there was one topic which was emerging time and time again, and that is the state of open hardware. I cannot talk about all of the open hardware, but I can share experience from 3D printing. And it is not good! Open hardware in 3D printing is dead - you just donāt know it yet. This is an opinion piece, imagine we are talking about this topic over a cold Pilsner ā¦
What happened?
Well, if you are in 3D printing a little bit longer, you must have noticed that over the last 5 years, a huge number of vibrant brands died. Basically every country in Europe and many states in the USA had a couple of their own machines and the industry was very very creative in that regard. Somebody brought an innovation, others adopted it and shared it back.
But around the year 2020 we registered the first mention of 3D printing as a strategic industry by the Chinese government. We know that now, after a few years of research. We first realized something is off when the price of the parts is higher than the sale price of a complete machine in some cases. That is what sparked our interest and research into the subsidies. They exist, and are very efficient https://rhg.com/research/far-from-normal-an-augmented-assessment-of-chinas-state-support/. Our industry, desktop 3D printing, faces a bleak future. Comparable to the automotive sector as if only one high volume car brand, say Audi, remained outside of China. Thatās it. An inch away from complete dependency on China in an vital piece of tech, the one absolutely critical for creation of new IP.
Patent minefield
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