‘Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead’ — rise of China’s government subsidies, country’s permissive patent system cited by Prusa CEO

Josef Prusa, Founder and CEO of Prusa Research, declared “open hardware desktop 3D printing” is dead. It’s a shocking statement coming from a man with the Open Source logo tattooed on his forearm. But it’s also true. Prusa cites the rise of China’s 3D printing industry and the country’s permissive patent system as a key pain point.

Prusa recently outlined his thoughts on the demise of Open Source Hardware, something he has championed since starting his company “in a moldy basement in Prague, packing printer frames in pizza boxes.” Prusa Research proudly believed in the open-source philosophy, an idea where both people and companies share research and innovations to grow an industry together.

But that Open Source movement couldn’t begin until after patents on the core technology, filed by inventor Scott Crump, started to expire in 2009. Crump founded Stratasys in the 1980s, and its patents limited 3D printing to proprietary industrial machines. The aversion to patents by fans of Open Source is understandable when you realize that 3D printing was kept out of reach for decades by a few corporations.

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Early versions of the Original Prusa i3 were plainly Open Source, happily bearing the logos of the many companies contributing parts: UltiMachine motherboards, LDO Motors, E3D V6 hotends, Noctua Fans, and a Meanwell Power supply. The Prusa MK2 and MK3 were more than the sum of their parts: it was a shining example of the Open Source community.