Thanks To 3D Printing And Open Source Hardware, Patent May Be On The Cusp Of A Copyright Moment

A new wave of creators care about innovating. They care about building things. And they mostly see patents as getting in the way.

If you are a practicing patent attorney, it might be a good idea to call up that one copyright attorney you know and invite them out for some coffee.  Because it’s starting to look like patents are about to have a copyright-like moment where they get pulled from an esoteric corner of law and thrust into popular culture.

And this isn’t a post about software patents, or about the portable patent thicket that is a modern mobile phone.  No, this is a post about what happens when an entire chunk of society runs into an area of law and gets really, really annoyed with what they find.