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Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

which is also why Fracassi doesn't dare share his 3D file with other hospitals, despite their desperate need for these valves.

Now suppose someone publishes, anonymously, the design file online...

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Would you download a car? :)

if i had a big enough printer i would

Yes. Assembly might prove tedious though.

Actually, I think designs and patents are free for personal use. So any easy way around it is to document how to get to that design, and let’s patients print valves for personal use

Print them, tell the company to fuck off, and get a blanket post-hoc pardon through parliament.

This isn't actually complicated. We're talking about saving lives in a pandemic. Who gives a shit about IP law?

No kidding, biology definitely trumps ink-on-paper in this case

My understanding is that you can reproduce them in order to study or extend the design, but not simply to avoid paying the patent holder.

Maybe get the patient to click "send to printer"?

I was thinking the same thing -- it'd be a shame if some "hacker" broke into his computer and posted his 3D files online without his permission.

Oh those scary hackers!

Looking at it now, my comment is slightly ambiguous. I mean that I would also love for the designs to get leaked, and I thought Johnny555's comment was great

Last I checked, patents only prevent you from selling infringing items, not making them for your own use. From the pictures I saw, the 3D item wasn’t a straight copy, so the copyright case would also be weak.

I doubt Fracassi is open to any legal liability at all. The hospital might be guilty of some IP infringement, especially if they charged someone for use of the part, or for the part itself.

I’d guess the bigger liability would come from the patients suing for the use of non-approved medical devices (which I doubt will happen, or would hold up in this case).

Note: not a lawyer, and certainly not an italian lawyer.

IANAL I guess I have to admit I'm not a lawyer but I think well-read laymen are allowed to share what they have learned: Patents provide a monopoly on the practice of an invention, which can be translated into an economic benefit. If I make 10,000 of these valves that is EUR 10,000,000 that the putative patent holder couldn't have. Morally, this is no time for medically necessary parts to be scarce and expensive. Technically, I would want to know how the law applies to the situation.

> Last I checked, patents only prevent you from selling infringing items, not making them for your own use.

INAL, but I'm pretty sure that's not true. If that were the case MP3 patents would not have been such a big problem for OSS software. Similar things apply(/applied) to open source hardware designs for 3D printing technology.

I tried to find out many times how far patents prevent non-profit usage, but also never arrived at a clear conclusion.

Maybe, you know, someone might manage to access the machine that runs the 3D printer. Just accidentally like ...

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