Today’s big news, courtesy of Quartz, is about the expiration of laser sintering patents that will change the face of 3D printing in 2014. In short, the reason “good” 3D printers – namely the ones that create solid, injection-molded style pieces – aren’t cheap or readily available is that older 3D printing companies have held the laser sintering process hostage. For example, the Form One printer by Form Labs infringes on these patents even though they detail a printer that uses a laser to fuse fine powder to create an object and the Form One uses a liquid.
via TechCrunch How To Stop 3D Printing’s Race To The Bottom