[captainmuon]

Their business model might be dead, I don't know. But the latest Prusa printers are as far as I know not really open - I can't download the schematics for free and make a clone, can I? And also a truely open schematic that I could download that way wouldn't be affected by patents, as long as I'm not selling it. Granted, commercial development with open core might be in trouble.

But first, that is not a technical nor a business problem, that sounds like a political problem. Prusa is literally the leading european name in the 3D-printing industry. Surely they can get an appointment with some government officials, who are concerned about manufacturing capabilities and future technologies - who pull some strings, and then every patent clerk will receive a memo to double check the relevant patents when someone tries to register them.

Second, Chinese patents have a different weight than EU/US patents. As he writes, they are a dime a dozen. Probably not worth caring about, unless they are targeting the Chinese market. And if they are, the best defense would probably to register some patents their themselves.

[Palomides]

>schematic that I could download that way wouldn't be affected by patents, as long as I'm not selling it

not true, there's no personal use exemption for patents

[RobotToaster]

There effectively is a common law exemption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_exemption

[ungreased0675]

China won’t enforce the patent of a foreign company against a domestic one. If anything, filing a Chinese patent assists copying and clones, because there’s less reverse engineering to do.

[skybrian]

Wouldn’t Prusa abandoning open hardware (for some components) be a prominent example showing that open hardware is dying?