Licensing Strategies
This week’s video, “Licensing Strategies for 3D Printing,” follows up on a previously discussed topic. Suing customers who print your company’s unauthorized product files when they eventually circulate on the Internet may not be the best strategy – witness how that strategy worked in the music industry (it was unsuccessful in stopping file-sharing and alienated customers). Instead, one component of a business’s strategic plan to leverage 3D printing technology may, where appropriate, contemplate affirmative licensing strategies (a model that the music industry eventually evolved to (e.g., the iTunes store) and continues to develop through various music streaming offerings).
Similarly, it may be in the future that some businesses move, in part, to models where authorized, branded digital files are sold and distributed over the Internet to end consumers or manufacturers, who simply print out the toy, the jewelry, the social expression product, the purse, the garment, the metal replacement part. Sold along with sellers’ branded product files would be product warranty and product liability terms.
“Brands” will still be powerful in a 3D world, providing barriers to entry and indicators of quality. Benesch attorneys in our additive manufacturing industry group are familiar with trademark (as well as patent and copyright) strategies to best protect our clients’ brands, patents and copyrights in a 3D world. Gartner analysts are predicting intellectual property losses exceeding $100 billion per year by 2018 from unauthorized 3D printing.