Now *that* is a very, very good and interesting point.
by Vinay Gupta • April 13, 2008 • The Global Picture • 1 Comment
Here is an interesting thought from the presentation by Adrian Bowyer of the RepRap project at the recent Go Open 2008 that I attended in Norway.
“People can make patented things for themselves”
Patentregulation prevents commercial agents without a license to sell people products covered by patents. In the future people will have in their homes cheap 3D printers and Matter Compilers (devices that build the desired article (such as a dress) atom by atom according to a specified design) or Molecular assemblers.
http://suse.groenbaek.net/openlife/2008/04/13/non-commercial-use-of-patents-is-not-illegal/
Vinay, I can’t find any corroboration for the belief that you can legally make patented stuff for yourself.. I seem to remember this being the case in the past.. but there is a thing called TRIPS, a WIPO/WTO agreement, and it looks like there is use/make in the prohibitions now for things you can’t do without license from the person with the patent. If someone can find something to contradict this then I would be delighted to see the UK chapter and verse on it. Even more interesting would be a comparative IP regulation table so that one could see which jurisdictions were more IP liberal.
M.