One last time: Patents are good. And Patents are bad.
And using the example of an ancient commercial 3D printer, we can finally prove it.

After getting hold of a defective 15 year old 3D printer, manufactured by the inventor of filament based 3D printing, we knew right away that we were not going to bring it back to its original working state.

The reason is simple: the control board made sure that the printer would only accept filament from the manufacturer. A little chip inside the cartridges in which the filament can be obtained, made sure you would not by accident fill the cartridge with an unworthy material that might end you up in a bad printing experience. The only worthy filament is priced at around 10 times the price of regular (so called!) premium filament on the market. Which again was the only reason the manufacturer was able to sell the very solid machine at a laughable 40.000 € back in 2009.

So, we decided to replace all of the electronics. And the print head. And while we were at it, the print bed had to go too. And the bed leveling sensor.
We ended up with a printer that has current 3D printing features like: Klipper firmware, BL Touch, a heated print bed, an integrated OBC and an 8" touch display.

But why was this possible at all (and how can we get back on topic from this point of the story)? Well - easy! Being the inventor of the technology the manufacturer had their inventions patented. Which does not only result in the - obvious - protection of their IP but also means that there is plenty of detailed documentation available that allowed someone some 20 years later to start an open source project that basically gave birth to the "prime father" of all modern filament based 3D printers we know today: the RepRap printer.

Most of the components we used to upgrade the ancient printer only exist because they were, in the first place: patented (boo!), documented, and then rebuilt and published (yay!) as open source hardware.

Therefore patents were the tool to give the inventor a chance to make money from its invention for years and thus refinancing the development of the technology. And those same patents made the open source project possible, giving all of us high-tech affordable 3D printing!

The talk will mainly focus on the changes we made to the printer to bring it to current technology in terms of hardware and software. It will also discuss the role the patents play in this whole picture and draw a beautiful circle from the original printer to all of the printers we know today.
If all goes well we might even bring the printer to the GPN. The distance won't be the problem - it's more the weight which is around 128 kg...