[mr_luc]

First, from elsewhere in this thread, from April 23rd, 2012, there is this auto-leveling technique, which probes by applying a slight current to detect contact:

http://hackaday.com/2012/04/23/automated-bed-leveling-with-o...

Second, I disagree with your priorities and/or point of view on this, and I think it might be anti-hacker. It must be at once obvious to everyone that desktop 3D printing is both vital to the future and currently a "cottage" industry. What matters more: the future, or our personal notions of what's classy?

I feel that any action intended as a land-grab for enormous swathes of intellectual territory in an industry so driven by, and amenable to, individual invention and modification, rightly deserves the opprobrium of all hacker types.

Trying to patent compensating for a non-level bed in 3D printers is a jerk move. You could provide a similar defensive moat by just publishing your work, without stifling any of your peers in this infant industry.

Edit: when I said "priorities", I was talking about specifically about prioritizing being classy over protecting a nascent industry, and how that could be anti-garage-innovator. Re-reading my comment, though, I guess it sounds a bit more personal, which wasn't my intent!

[bryans]

I don't think you have any idea what my priorities are, you seem to have misinterpreted my point of view, and I find it amusing to be called an anti-hacker for all sorts of reasons.

The reality is that the patent system exists, in all it's horrible innovation-stifling glory. It's business, nothing more. It's not right and it's ruining the world, but you have to work within the system until the system changes.

If there is other prior art, that's fine. So be it. But the author did not provide any of that art, and instead made false claims based on a knee-jerk reaction to something that he misread.

I don't like having to defend the patent system at all, but the author is in the wrong. Simple as that.

[sillysaurus3]

It's not right and it's ruining the world, but you have to work within the system until the system changes.

I disagree with anyone calling anyone here anti-hacker. But I just wanted to point out that the above sentence can be used to justify any legal horror in any time. Think of all the atrocities that once were legal. If you think something is ruining the world, that's a pretty good reason not to work with it.

[thedufer]

> What matters more: the future, or your personal notions of what's classy?

His point was about neither of those; it was about what is legal - something you seem completely uninterested in. Yeah, it might not be "classy" to file patents, but claiming they've done something that would invalidate the patent when they haven't surely isn't classy, either.

[mr_luc]

Well, I did mention what I was interested in: the future.

Viewed in that light, if you take the view that many (perhaps a majority) of HN types do of the stifling effect of patents on industries as malleable as (software/maker/diy), even if they may be acceptable in more staid industries, then a witch-hunt about companies making land-grabs in one of these vulnerable and very important areas may well be worthwhile and beneficial to mankind.

And it's not impossible that it could be beneficial ... and simultaneously classless, and on shaky legal ground. (Although note other comments citing better evidence from April 20th, 2012).

I do think there's something to be said for calling out "this is crazy, we all know the community has worked on X, it would be an obscenity if the desktop manufacturing industry, of all things, got stifled by patents, let's find the prior art and shame the land-grabbers while we're at it." Which is what the original poster is doing, obviously as a very interested party.

I think that's a pretty coherent, and really strong, point of view. I mean, it's desktop manufacturing, dude!