PROTECTION
Protecting and Monetizing IP in Additive Manufacturing
Additive manufacturing has truly arrived . When the first 3D printer was introduced back in 1987 , it was the start of a long and often arduous journey until we learned how to print 3D objects at the required quality and at a competitive price . In all this time , one issue was often and undeservedly pushed to the sidelines : What about protecting 3D printing data from piracy ? And how can print jobs be tracked and billed correctly and securely for everybody involved ?
The Rise of Additive Manufacturing As so often happens when highly complex technology is concerned , the story is not one of a single solution or one-time eureka moment , but of long and patient work on countless individual problems and issues that needed lots of time and experience to solve . People had already began thinking about 3D printing in the 1970s , but it would take until 1987 for the physicist Chuck Chull to come up with the first working model . A generation later , it has become normal for objects to be designed on one side and created on the other side of the world , even combining different materials . What started as rapid prototyping , i . e . the ability to quickly produce prototypes of an object , has turned into a means to produce individual parts , custom products , or even entire production runs . Now , manufacturers are working hard on integrating additive manufacturing even deeper in their production processes . And why should they not ? The benefits are obvious : Complex and unwieldy supply chains can be trimmed back , the carbon footprint of each product suddenly shrinks significantly , and on-demand production without slow and complex tool engineering means a faster time to market and the ability to roll out new business models .
This is not to say that there are no challenges remaining in the field . But one key aspect that is an essential element of any viable additive manufacturing business models keeps getting overlooked . The designs and data for additive manufacturing need to be protected at every link in the chain , and there needs to be a transparent and tamper-proof way to count , track , and bill the number of printed objects .
The Additive Manufacturing Process To understand why this matters , we need to understand how a 3D design becomes a printed object and who is involved in that process . It all starts with the development of a digital object , which contains or represents a crucial piece of intellectual property . This asset needs to be protected , because only protected IP can be marketed in any sensible way . This should not be a problem if the holder of that IP is actually the same person or business doing the processing and printing as well . But the 3D printing market is moving in another direction : In many cases , the digital object will be only one component of a whole array of pieces that an integrator would assemble into a finished product , and the printing happens outside of the direct control of the IP ’ s owner . Commercial concerns mean that the actual printing business will be dominated more and more by specialized 3D service providers . In essence : there has to be a way to protect a digital object , but also to legitimately guide it through an entire process chain with many different actors involved .
Prepress and Printer : Different Licenses for Different Purposes
At first sight , this seems to be an unsolvable proposition , but the same situation has long been solved in the software business , where software protection and license management are ( or should be ) commonplace . The CodeMeter technology by Wibu-Systems uses tough cryptographic standards to encrypt digi-
5