Intellectual Property and 3D printing

It’s great and exciting to see so many ideas coming alive at i.materialise and to notice more and more people find their way to our online service. To help people in the design process, we want to highlight the issue of Intellectual Property.

Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind for which exclusive rights are granted. The principal categories of IP are patents, trademarks, and copyrights. With respect to 3D printing, there are many interesting and unsettled questions about how current IP laws will be applied to this developing technology.

i.materialise strives to respect the IP rights of all third parties, like you. This is still new territory for everyone and because many of the most interesting legal questions have yet to be answered, we want to caution designers to think about IP when creating and uploading new designs.

We wish you a good time designing, creating and amazing us (like you do every day).