3D Printing Will Cost The World USD100 Billion, Says Study

A recent report predicts the loss of at least $100 billion per year in intellectual property globally by 2018 as a result of 3D printing.

“Predicts 2014: 3D Printing at the Inflection Point” was produced by IT research and advisory company Gartner, and is available here [pdf]. It makes predictions on the future of 3D printing and associated opportunities and risks.

Some of the opportunities identified in the report include the use of three dimensional (3D) printing to make accessible and affordable medical devices and the ability of retailers to produce custom-designed products.

3D printing will “revolutionize industries as diverse as aerospace, consumer goods, healthcare, retail, manufacturing and the military,” says the report. Examples include a small working kidney that was made in China using a biomaterial 3D printer, and a working windpipe built with stem cells inserted into a child in the US.

The use of bio-printing to build customized human parts has pervasive appeal especially in emerging, economically weak and war-torn regions, it says.

With 8.5 billion people suffering from inadequate healthcare worldwide, 3D printing of non-living medical devices such as prosthetic limbs, combined with a burgeoning population and insufficient levels of healthcare in emerging markets, is likely to cause an “explosion in demand” for the technology by 2015.

However, it will also raise some important IP issues concerning the rights over organs and tissues made using this technology.

“While US patent law does not allow human organisms to be patented, does that protection extend to individual organs?” the report says. “The plummeting costs of 3D printers, scanners and modelling technology, combined with improving capabilities, makes the technology for IP theft more accessible to would-be criminals.”

It predicts at least one claim in the West with regard to IP theft using 3D printing will take place by 2015.

“The very factors that foster innovation – crowdsourcing, R&D pooling and funding of start-ups – coupled with shorter product life cycles, provide a fertile ground for intellectual property theft using 3D printers,” Peter Basiliere, research director at Gartner, said in a press release.

This will make it more difficult for businesses to fully monetize their inventions and make maximum benefits from licenses. The reduced product development and supply chain costs of 3D printed products risks allowing IP thieves to sell counterfeit copies at low costs that may be dangerous or under performing.

The report recommends investment in means of identifying the authenticity of products such as through embedded chips, which cannot be copied using 3D printing.

Julia Fraser is an intern at Intellectual Property Watch. She is currently training to be a solicitor and will start work at an international law firm in London in 2015. She has a BSc Honours in Biology from Edinburgh University where she developed an interest in public health related intellectual property issues.