Towards open source patents: Semi-automated open hardware certification from MediaWiki websites

Peplinski, Jack E.; Velis, Emilio; Pearce, Joshua M.

doi:10.1016/j.wpi.2022.102150

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…By actively sharing ideas, innovations, and contributions through various channels such as open-source repositories, project platforms, and social media, the community can fortify the public domain and make ideas easily discoverable as prior art. There have been some efforts to do this with the Open Source Hardware Association's (OSHWA) open hardware certification process [135] and to quasi-automate this process for MediaWiki websites like Appropedia [136]. Clearly far more work is needed to aggregate all of the current open-source inventions and to add the OSHWA certification database to the official list of repositories that are checked by all patent offices for prior art.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patent Parasites: Non-Inventors Patenting Existing Open-Source Inventions in the 3-D Printing Technology Space

Kulkarni¹,

Pearce²

2023

Preprint

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Open-source 3-D printing has played a pivotal role in revolutionizing the additive manufacturing (AM) landscape, by making distributed manufacturing economic, democratizing access, and fostering far more rapid innovation than antiquated proprietary systems. Unfortunately, some 3-D printing manufacturing companies began deviating from open-source principles and violating licenses for the detriment of the community. To determine if a pattern has emerged of companies patenting clearly open-source innovations, this study presents three case studies from the three primary regions of open-source 3-D printing development (EU, U.S. and China) as well as three aspects of 3-D printing technology (AM materials, an open-source 3-D printer, and core open-source 3-D printing concepts used in most 3-D printers). The results of this review have shown that non-inventing entities called patent parasites are patenting open-source inventions already well-established in the open source community and in the most egregious cases commercialized by one (or several) firms at the time of the patent filing. Patent parasites are able to patent open-source innovations by using a different language, vague patent titles and broad claims that encompass enormous swaths of widely diffused open-source innovation space. This practice poses a severe threat to innovation and several approaches to irradicate the threat are discussed.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patent Parasites: Non-Inventors Patenting Existing Open-Source Inventions in the 3-D Printing Technology Space

Kulkarni¹,

Pearce²

2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…By actively sharing ideas, innovations, and contributions through various channels such as open-source repositories, project platforms, and social media, the community can fortify the public domain and make ideas easily discoverable as prior art. There have been some efforts to do this with the Open Source Hardware Association's (OSHWA's) open hardware certification process [135] and quasi-automate this process for MediaWiki websites like Appropedia [136]. Clearly, far more work is needed to aggregate all of the current open-source inventions and to add the OSHWA's certification database to the official list of repositories that are checked by all patent offices for prior art.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Patent Parasites: Non-Inventors Patenting Existing Open-Source Inventions in the 3-D Printing Technology Space

Kulkarni,

Pearce

2023

Inventions

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Open-source 3-D printing has played a pivotal role in revolutionizing the additive manufacturing (AM) landscape by making distributed manufacturing economic, democratizing access, and fostering far more rapid innovation than antiquated proprietary systems. Unfortunately, some 3-D printing manufacturing companies began deviating from open-source principles and violating licenses for the detriment of the community. To determine if a pattern has emerged of companies patenting clearly open-source innovations, this study presents three case studies from the three primary regions of open-source 3-D printing development (EU, U.S., and China) as well as three aspects of 3-D printing technology (AM materials, an open-source 3-D printer, and core open-source 3-D printing concepts used in most 3-D printers). The results of this review have shown that non-inventing entities, called patent parasites, are patenting open-source inventions already well-established in the open-source community and, in the most egregious cases, commercialized by one (or several) firm(s) at the time of the patent filing. Patent parasites are able to patent open-source innovations by using a different language, vague patent titles, and broad claims that encompass enormous swaths of widely diffused open-source innovation space. This practice poses a severe threat to innovation, and several approaches to irradicate the threat are discussed.

show abstract

Towards open source patents: Semi-automated open hardware certification from MediaWiki websites

Cited by 2 publications

References 23 publications

Patent Parasites: Non-Inventors Patenting Existing Open-Source Inventions in the 3-D Printing Technology Space

Patent Parasites: Non-Inventors Patenting Existing Open-Source Inventions in the 3-D Printing Technology Space

Patent Parasites: Non-Inventors Patenting Existing Open-Source Inventions in the 3-D Printing Technology Space

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