[throwmeaway33]

That's a really simplistic. The real world isn't that simple and it can take years to get your business off the ground. Suppose the original inventor spent several years perfecting a 3D printing process and then 4 months after he starts selling his printers (before he's built up a rep, a steady stream of clients, maybe with still no staff) some other schmuck with a shitload of VC cash swoops in, does the same thing, but undercuts him by having a more efficient manufacturing process or outsourcing to China or something. That'd be kinda shitty and you wouldn't just tell the guy to suck it up, work faster and invent something new.

The purpose of patents is to give new companies with brilliant ideas some breathing room where they can grow their business.

I don't know the background of the given companies in this situation, but it's possible that 3D Software was being muscled out by a bunch of kidz with a flashy kickstarter and a nice promo vid.

[forgottenpaswrd]

Well, they had more than 30 years since the main technology was developed!!.

These kids are bringing 3d printing to the masses because the IBMs of the 3d printing won't do it on their own.

There is a balance between granting monopolies(patents), and making those monopolies eternal, or not respecting or giving credit to the creators of something.

[throwmeaway33]

Patents don't last 30 years.

And yes, there is a balance, and I'm not suggesting it's been reached. I just want to dispel the notion that it'll all be hunky dory with no patent laws.

[electic]

I disagree. If some guy can just swoop in with more cash and beat you then you deserve it. Using your argument, no startup would have a chance against Google or Oracle because they have more cash and more resources.

On the same note, more cash != success and that goes for startups. It is all down to execution. If you are not executing, don't have market awareness, and your engineering is not up to snuff then you do not deserve to survive in the marketplace. You should not use draconian laws to offset your mis-execution.

[screwt]

That's simply not true for a manufacturing start-up.

To develop a physical product takes a long time, with a lot of (costly[1]) trial and error. You'll start with single items, then move on to batch production (10s-100s) on a few versions to test proof of concept. Depending on the size of the market, you may move on to mass production. For each scale increase, the start-up cost is higher, and the unit cost is lower.

If I develop a product, and in doing so show it has great potential, I've done most of the hard work. It's then easy for someone to go straight in at the top end with relatively little investment, because I've already proved the concept and sucked up the risk.

It's fair that people are able to protect their investment for something like this, otherwise it's not possible to compete against larger players.

Physical manufacturing is not the same as software.

[1] Relative to developing software, that is.

[flyinRyan]

Plus, it would be stupid to "suck it up, work faster and invent something new" since it would likely just get stolen again.