3D printing may not be for every home--and that is a good thing for IP

Will IP matter? The question seems to arise in the wake of every new disruptive technology. It is no surprise, therefore, that it is being asked in connection with 3D printing, where digital content, easily distributed over the network, is married to the potential for making a myriad of objects in any location where a 3D printer can be operated (think: your home). If the concern a decade ago was how to regulate the downloading of a movie or a song, today it is how to regulate the downloading of a digital file containing all the instructions to make a perfect copy of a product, down to its trade mark. Recalling the discussion a decade or two ago regarding the downloading of digital songs and movies, suggestions are made for various technological solutions. More generally, calls are made for a cultural make-over, where the consumer will habitually come to prefer the genuine product, e.g., using authorized digital instructions and the correct product materials, within the context of 3D printing.

This Kat is all in favour of finding ways by which people will prefer the genuine IP thing. With all due respect to Charles Duhigg and his enthusiasm for fashioning habits, this Kat is not very optimistic about changing collective habits in this manner. Perhaps the more fruitful way to view the problem is to focus on business models in the 3D space. After all, we have seen from the response by the music and film industries that it ultimately it may make more sense to seek business models by which their customers will be prepared to pay for genuine digital contents. This Kat recognizes that 3D printing is a complex ecosystem with more than a few moving parts, such that there is no such thing as a “single business model” that will encompass all involved. Still, it is worthwhile to consider one possibility, namely the potential role of fulfilment centres.

To do so, we need to retreat a bit from the widely-expressed view that 3D printing will become the ultimate form of disintermediation, whereby ultimately each of us will have one or more 3D printers in our home for making endless products to our heart’s consent. Under this view, the customer becomes the manufacturer, and the role of entities to sell and distribute products to us, be it Wall-Mart or Amazon.com, is significantly diminished. This Kat remains skeptical that a large swathe of the population will want to engage in making things in their spare time, at the expense of exploiting the home as a source of entertainment and information. Still, many persons will be attracted to 3D printing as a means for enabling the making of goods suited for one’s specific requirements, even if such production will not take place within the confines of one’s home.

So where might this 3D printing take place? The answer—at a commercial fulfilment centre, by which we mean at the physical site of an entity, where a customer will be able to select the desired product, and the fulfilment centre will then proceed to make it on-site for the customer. True, the fulfilment centre will also benefit from this arrangement as form of middleman, but in so doing it will provide a desired service for a customer, who wants to benefit from 3D printing, but not at home.

While the image of 3D printing taking place at a fulfillment center is less romantic than the view of every man and woman being a craftsman at home, it seems to this Kat such a business model will more favorable for protecting IP rights. This is because a fulfillment center will likely have a much greater incentive to ensure that its 3D printing operation is fully IP compliant. Because it is in business of commercially facilitating 3D printing for customers, a fulfilment centre can ill afford to be identified as a source of unauthorized production files or substandard, or inappropriate, production materials. After all, the fulfillment center has a business reputation to protect, in exchange for being able to commercially benefit from the 3D printing ecosystem.

Moreover, it may be significantly easier to enforce one’s IP rights vis a vis a fulfilment centre than to try and go after a legion of miscreants at home for alleged IP violations. We have seen how problematic enforcement at this personal level can be in connection with downloading digital songs and films, either due to privacy concerns or by virtue of an explicit statutory exemption. These challenges might be materially reduced if 3D printing becomes less a matter of home production and more the business of commercial fulfilment centres. Ironically, perhaps, IP owners might well hope that, despite the more enthusiastic ambitions of 3D printing advocates, it never really becomes ubiquitous in the home.