For the second time in recent history, Formlabs is on the receiving end of intellectual property infringement claims. EnvisionTEC has filed a lawsuit against Formlabs in the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
EnvisionTEC are claiming that Formlabs 3D printers are infringing against two patents held by the company, and are seeking “injunctive relief prohibiting Formlabs from continued infringement as well as remedies in the form of monetary damages for past and current infringement.”
EnvisionTEC CEO Al Siblani gave the following statement:
“EnvisionTEC has been inventing, developing, manufacturing and selling 3D printers, materials and other related technologies and services for nearly 15 years. Today, we hold numerous patents around the world covering a variety of our 3D printing products, methods and more. This intellectual property was researched and developed over many years by our innovative team of professionals and is invaluable to our business serving a variety of medical, professional and industrial markets around the world. We are committed to aggressively protecting our intellectual property in accordance with the laws of the countries in which we operate.”
The previous settlement of the lawsuit between 3D Systems and Formlabs took two years to resolve, and resulted in 3D Systems collecting 8% royalty on Formlabs product sales, so we’ll see what happens in this case.
We have reached out to both companies for further comment, stay tuned for more information as we receive it.
About EnvisionTEC
EnvisionTEC is a leading global provider of professional-grade 3D printing solutions. Founded in 2002 with its pioneering commercial DLP printing technology, EnvisionTEC now sells more than 40 printers based on six distinct technologies that build objects from digital design files. The company’s premium 3D printers serve a wide variety of medical, professional and industrial markets, and are valued for precision, surface quality, functionality and speed. EnvisionTEC’s intellectual property includes more than 100 pending and granted patents and 70 proprietary materials.
About Formlabs
Formlabs designs and manufactures powerful and accessible 3D printing systems for engineers, designers, and artists. Their flagship product, the Form 2 3D printer, uses stereolithography (SLA) to create high-resolution physical objects from digital designs. The company was founded in 2012 by a team of engineers and designers from the MIT Media Lab and Center for Bits and Atoms. With its powerful, intuitive, and affordable machines, Formlabs is establishing a new benchmark in professional desktop 3D printing. Formlabs also develops its own suite of high-performance materials for 3D printing, as well as best-in-class 3D printing software.
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