Replicate Anything with 3D Printing – What about the Related Infringements?

3D printing is a revolutionary concept. Along with many other amazing utilities of this technology, comes the ability of replicating any object with the minimum of effort. Let’s say you want to buy a digital camera. Now, instead of spending several bucks on the camera, you borrow one from a friend and replicate it with the help of 3D scanning and printing. Pretty convenient, isn’t it? But that’s not all. You can go on and on with the same step till you’ve assembled enough cameras to open your own little camera store on the corner of the street! Imagine the level of infringements this technology plans to bring along.
A number of companies are trying to come up with solutions on how they can protect their products from replication. For example, record companies implant copyright information into MP3s at a frequency too high for human ears to hear and the banknotes are printed with a pattern called the EURion constellation which is capable of shutting down coloured copiers if you try to scan the notes.
In theory, 3D objects can be protected in the same way, by embedding a pattern or a watermark in the products which is too small for the human eyes to be recognized. It is also possible to implant a command in the printer or scanner to shut down, if the product with one such pattern is being replicated. There is another solution as well, to implant original products with ‘object cancers’, which will produce alterations or defects in the subsequent replicas.
As of now, 3D printing looks like an improbable dream but the fears of infringements are nonetheless growing. The whole scenario, that what the future of 3D printing will look like seems to be full of excitement and possibilities. Let’s just wait and watch!