I have passed through all kinds of feeling throughout this saga..from sadness and tears, to anger and madness and discouragement even to a point of abandonning the Goliath project entirely and maybe the entire Vz world. I didn't want a fight with anyone. I never thought it would have been like that (maybe I live in a unicorn world where everyone loves each other...). All I wanted was to bring a good high performance hotend at a very decent price so everyone could afford it. But I am not a quitter. I won't stop! I will not stop doing what makes me happy in life. I will not let this patent thing stop me. Goliath will live and no matter what it takes. Please don't be too hard on Slice for this. Busyness is busyness and they did what they had to do. I will repeat what I said I facebokk here: Dan and Chris are still very good persons and this was not something personal to me I know. Busyness is cruel sometimes but it is what it is though I don't agree with this patent. And trust me I am not against patent in general. I would still go for a beer with those guys and discuss like 3d passionate people do. For now, I am just waiting on Covid lock down to end in China to release the Goliath with a patent friendly update. Thanks for this well done video my friend. It made my day and got my heart warm and gave me a good boost of energy to go on!! Love you all guys!
I don't know what I'd do without your VzBot movement nowadays. Having built two VzBots when the project just started out myself has taught me so much and made me create many exciting and fun mods, even my own 3d printer project! Thanks for staying strong Vez and building this great project for all of us. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Keep going and never stop, we're all with you!
Please don't stop vzbot it is probably one of the best, fastest, and quality corexy printer I have seen that can rival prosumer even professional printers on the market. I look forward to building a vzbot soon with the extruder and Goliath hotend if it wasn't for already owning a v-minion I would have had a vzbot 235 already lol keep up the great work and keep innovating. Slice engineering guys might be cool guys but this was still a messed.up move
You're a better man then I, personally I find the whole patent thing being used like this going so against everything I love about open source printers and hardware and the community in general. I'm glad you're able to find ways around this crazy stuff. Hang in there man.
Excellent response! Hopefully you can continue on and become bigger and better than ever! I don't totally blame them personally either BUT greed is ugly :(
I suspect that the only reason they did not patented the Bimetal heatbreak is not because of the goodness of their heart but simply it will not fly with the patent office. Hotend are inherently bimetal on both end. They simply move the interface from one part to another
Yep. I mentioned this as well. Their IP model seems more like: Patent if possible, if not, make a big name out of findings and call others copycats anyways.
Agreed, its thermal dynamics not a patent and in real extrusion long before 3d printing heat breaks are used still today to extruder polymers no new tech and bolts aren't special to just them, the fact they have one for this is discussing and degrading to every RED seal millwright 100% and more
Sounds like they designed products to file for parents so they can sue companies. To reference communism in what should be an apology letter is beyond absurd. If it was true communism then slice could have companies shit down, at least to a degree People file parents waiting or someone else to make it then sue them when they have never had or worked on the parent they filled. With communism the rich, or those with government friends get their way regardless of it's right or wrong. It just makes the wealthy flourish. Alice sounds a lot like Apple accept people actually but Apple products. The Goliath has a 100 watt wire that runs around the hotend several times, that's more innovation than anything slice has ever done. Linux is by far the best example of what open source can do. I mean, nobody is running on web servers using MS server and IIS, at least nothing with more than. 50.currcierwnt users at least. VmWare wouldn't exist. So much more that I could add. Another good example is Home Assistant, which runs on Linux. There is still plenty of money to make while being open and and end users have more respect for the company. Like Sovol releasing a Voron but everything is open source still. I know they didn't originally have the hardware open source but they listened to the community and acted appropriately IMO.
I think they’d have been able to patent using thin-wall titanium tubing bonded into copper on both ends. Nowhere else would the bimetallic interface be well situated to minimise heat-creep. Nor was it likely anyone else was deliberately choosing low-conductivity high-strength materials, in order to allow the metal to be extra thin to conduct even less heat. It’s absolutely a functional innovation.
@@Scrogan the patent was literally for standoffish, that's it. Till this day the Goliath hotend has this on their page, they literally just used screws. It has nothing to do about bimetallic material. --- At present, 6 titanium screws are used to connect the heat sink and the heating block, which is not an infringement of the US patent, so it can be sold normally. Package: --- The US allows overly vague parents. Apple got a patent for smartphone icons with round corners. In fact they got a patent for a smartphone with round corners. This was right when smartphones came out and they thought Samsung was trying to copy them. While they were to a degree, it's insane to allow payments like those or this one. Heck, there are people who make a living filing parents for stuff they are never going to make just to wait for someone to do it then sue them. Patent trolls are a real thing. Not saying slice is, but they kind of are in this one particular scenario. I understand wanted to protect you IP but having standoffs between the hotend and the heartbreak isn't one of them, ESPECIALLY since it's been proven they weren't the first to do so. They just filed for the patent first so they got it. No ody else thought to do so because it's silly. I do agree that there were some straight off ripoffs on AliExpress but the Goliath wasn't one of them . I mean, who cares about heat creep if you get the water cooled version? The real issue was their response. Whoever wrote that had zero experience in any sort of customer relations. Slice hurt themselves more than any money made off that patent which still seems to be valid in China.
I almost bought Slice's bimetal heat break, but now I'm glad I bought a different brand. IP supposedly rewards innovation, but it only punishes those who improve upon previous innovations. If you want to be rewarded for your product in a supposedly free market, you should have to make it appealing with good quality at an affordable price, and innovation can be part of that. Patents are a license to produce poor quality products at a high price because customers can't get better from anyone else. That's a monopoly.
Having seen this video I would even argue that Slice Engineering's patent should be invalidated since it has been done before and hence simply can not be their IP.
agreed. nearly a decade before they came along - it was already done - because the concept of 'keeping the hot making parts separated from the parts that need to be kept cold" was not that hard to figure out , even in early days.
Literal definition of patent trolling. You find a method that already exists but is not patented, combine it with your product with just enough (if any) new design features to get a patent granted, then you bully competition (usually smaller fish) into submission by legal threats. Slice can't go against Creality for MK8 hotend despite the same spacer design, because Creality has the means to fight in court, and possibly invalidate the patent. Smaller fish like an Aliexpress seller/manufacturer or a design group like Vzbot or Voron = easy to shut down because they can't afford to go to court. IP laws are stupid like that, and rectification can be done through legal means but not all parties have the means to challenge it, smaller fish just has to capitulate and shut shop. Same with RED for example in camera business, they usually go after 3rd party accessory makers instead of Panasonic or Canon (but they've tried that too).
this wh< the whole patent system is garbage....look at what is currently patented - its utter lunacy. Prior art is what makes humans evolve. Patents undo that by protecting stuff as new when it really is prior art..
Would never buy a slice hotend. Way to expensive & i don't like companies that act like this. It is a no go. Recently bought an E3D Revo hotend. Good quality for way lower price. Slice is only afraid of others making better products for lower price. 🙄
The Revo is awesome. I might be in the minority, but I fucking hate nozzle changes. No matter what I do, something always goes wrong during a nozzle change with wrenches. Filament leaks, damaged the heater cartridge and thermistor on my Prusa Mini during nozzle changes (really poor design there, tbh), etc. Revo system is the solution to all that bullshit.
Revo has a patent too. That said it's a bit different than slice. I don't think you should be allowed to patent standoffs. Standoffs are used in everything for isolation and rigidity. Maybe you can patent the way you implement them say how they use surgical tubing to better insulate the heat.
Final nail in Slice Engineering's coffin for me. I have never liked their Mosquito patent because as shown in this video it is both obvious solution to the problem and it has ben done before by others. In this I have always seen it similar to Apple patenting a generic sketch of a touchpad decades after the same device featured i movies and literatrue, after Star Trek had it in hundreds of episodes. It is just ridiculous to me that such patents even get granted. Nevertheless based on some reviews I bought a Copperhead hotend once. No clones, I do not trust cheap clones, I wanted the genuine article. I have never been more disappointed by a hotend's performance before or since. And I have never had a 3D printer component that would be so overpriced for what it is. Slice Engineering has the business it has because in 2009 some patents expired and open source community took over the developement. Prusa could only start selling printers after they were no longer blocked by patents. So for Slice to use patents now to block others that do not just straight up clone them but just use one tiny similar part in an otherwise completely new and unique design is just making me angry. So angry Slice will never get a cent of my money no matter what they make. I will not buy anything from them even if it is twice as good as anything else on the market. I would rather suffer worse performance than support these people. And I will try to convince others to do the same whenever someone asks me for advice on printers.
Spreading the word is our most powerful tool and our most important responsibility. I would feel awful if I bought a product from them and then found out what I was inadvertently supporting.
This. That's why I'm opening my own 3d printing store with brand new and innovative products myself. Hope to make innovation affordable and open for anybody
Nice video. It would be good to dig up prior art, there were spacer isolated hotends before Slice came along, so their patent is probably invalid. It takes lawyers and money to fully attack a patent but digging up and sharing the old evidence through the community would go a long way to help getting Slice to back off. They apparently reinvented an old wheel and got unearned credit for it.
For those raising points about E3D patenting the Revo hotend, there's a big difference here. Slice is holding patents hostage and preventing people from using the idea of rigid spacers between the hot and cold ends of a hotend, while E3D is only patenting to prevent exact clones of Revo. There's a stark contrast here. The E3D patent only protects the looks of the Revo, and doesn't stop anyone from making a separate hotend that supports swapping out the nozzle and heater when cold. This helps stop cheap low-quality clones from flooding the market while not inhibiting others from creating products that derive from this core idea. That's a much better way to do patents.
Not to mention the price difference. Of course if you sell you product at a prohibitly high price people will buy the clone. The revo is pricey but it's not half the price of an ender 3 expensive.
I'm sure many others will feel the same as me, because of how slice engineering is anti-competitive and sue-happy I will out of principle never buy a product from them and also will actively discourage others from purchasing their products. With this in mind their circle diagram fails because customer resistance to bullying tactics and because the companies who have had their products removed have no recourse against this bullying I will actively try and support them with my money.
Patenting 4 screws is the definition of patent trolling. They should be sued because they stolen ideeas from the community and they now use it to make money
his points on the uniqueness is on point. one could argue that the hotends A, B and K show prior art, as well as show their claims are not new. THAT IS GROUNDS FOR A PATENT REVOKATION If prior art or publications show that your claims are not new, the USPTO may invalidate, or revoke, your patent you would just need a lawyer to write a re-examination request, and I bet that there is likely at least one company looking into that, for how wide their patent is
Neither of those designs is covered by the patent that Slice engineering has. The patent does NOT cover standoffs, it covers specifically standoffs that are kept in compression by a separate tensioned member (like a screw).
@@erikcederb yep, and at least partially reduces mechanical loading on the feed tube. I sent vez the full patent history a couple of weeks back and highlighted the prior art they successfully argued around. (
I hope they realize that taking down the "clones" on AliExpress not only does absolutely nothing for the 3D printing community, but are still available on TaoBao (AliExpress is the international version of TaoBao). So basically the Chinese went: "Oh, we can't sell on AliExpress? We'll just keep selling it domestically, not like you can do anything about it" So what you have done is locked the rest of the world (at least those who don't know how to buy from TaoBao) out of new, innovative Hot-ends that are way cheaper while the Chinese can enjoy them all to their selves. Really doing your country a favor by losing out more to China.
Isn’t it the case that the European Union Patent system does not acknowledge the slice patent? I was quite baffled how emotional slice response was. Shame, insult, guilt. After some years on this planet people can smell the BS when they use defensive tactics like Gulag topic, Veteran support, accusations and downplay of „their need to protect their financial interest“ If they were in the right, non of these would be arguments worth considering to convince all of us „Communists“ to get on their side. Agree with you fully, if Slice would be less hostile to the community many would be in their support. Slice makes awesome hardware (own two hotends) but consciously hindering innovation with a patent that can instantly disqualified just by looking at the mentioned hotends from 2014, just goes too far.
@@middleagebrotips3454 maybe that's why this discussion always has a few bootlickers, acting ideologically and spewing journalistic drivel about this very clear issue. Thinking that nothing needs to change to get better isn't an ideology; it's fear, ignorance and stupidity. They trick themselves into thinking that their side of politics is ideologically consistent on this issue, when no side of politics ever has been; especially in the US.
ive said this from the start about slice engineerings patents, the parts that make up the mosquito arent really new as a concept, like this "spacer technology" yet the Ender 3/CR10 hotend uses 2 small screws on either side for much the same reason. and not to mention bimetalic heatbreaks arent really new, just finally in a pacakge thats not a diy hack job. heres one example of someone inventing one back in 2012 on reprap forums thread ID 1,250849 just no one called them bi metalic heatbreakss. it was a diy "stainless steel hypodermic tube" soldered directly into a cooper heater block and a "copper tube" with water running through it to keep it cool. this is so old that the nozzle is made from a dome nut. i argued with Design Prototype Test a while back about this, both these points
Y'know I was a bit confused because I saw the exact configuration on my Ender 3... when I was installing one of Slice Engineering's bimetal heat breaks on it. Shame, too - it worked really well and fixed issues I had with plastic melting and clogging the system. I probably wouldn't have even known that Slice had some marginally-inventive patents in their portfolio if they hadn't written such a weirdly vindictive blog post that pulls the whole "Open Source is communism" nonsense
@@SuperSmashDolls while they have made inovations ontop of what prior art they are now going after other hotends that are not even copying their designs. The Vzbot goliath should never been taken down. how they are isolating and supporting the heater block is unique, 3 screws inside the ceramic spaces. slice has 4 seperate thin walled spaces and 2 cr10 style exposed screws. if they are able to take down the goliath hotend then their patents are far too encompassing. the nfcrazy and spider were justified to take down but not the goliath. someone needs to just call their bluff and get their patents stripped at this point. by the sounds of their patent either they essentially patented the use of washers. or the CR10 also infringes on their patent. by the sounds of it at least vzbot would only need to remove the spacers leaving bare screws holding the hotend in place. just like the CR10 with 3 screws. they made that blog post to convince themselves they are the "good guys" in this whole ordeal. they could have had some specific patents but they got greedy and tried to make their patent far too broad. i hope it comes back to bite them
I don't get that patent could be granted. My Ender 3 hotend used 2 extra bolts for stability way before there was any Slice engineering hotend. That is clearly prior use, no? So is using 4 screws unique? Well, then we can just use 3 or 5 to bypass the patent.
From my very limited knowledge of patent law, it’s mainly about having the money and time to challenge and defend your patents. You can kinda see how open source projects have a distinct disadvantage in this regard. Don’t buy slice products and like the VORON team, remove support for them in your open source projects.
The patent is around making the heatbreak non structural by the means of having something else in compression and something in tension. In the case of the Creality hotend you have two screws in tension, and the heatbreak in compression. Clearly the Slice setup is better, but you can easily dodge the patent going the Creality route using screws without spacers, it is what Rapido and Dragon UHF do.
Screw Slice, i will never buy anything from those patent trolls. All they are doing is annoying and holding back the 3d printing community like Stratasys did back in the days. Hopefully there will be massive pushback from the community at some point if they keep this up, forcing them to go bankrupt.
this is difficult, 10 year long or whatever patent period is way too long for current rate of development, imagine what tech we would have now if all 3d printer tech was open
This is one of those features that honestly shouldn't be patented, like having images play on loading screens between game areas, which is also ridiculously patented.
This is a sad story. Slice make good products using sound designs but their patent claim is ridiculous: four thin spacers is an obvious solution among many others and was used before. Not defendable but they can try to scare others. I understand their need of protecting their design from clones.. But the VZ hotend is far away from their design and is NOT a clone in any way. Their move is bad for the community and Slice eng. reputation. Just sad and stupid.
Set aside Slice Engineering's questionable patent and ask if what you are arguing is that no intellectual property protection should be allowed. This would ultimately crush innovation. The potential to make a profit and provide more opportunities for a person is a major factor in why innovation exists. The result of this profit motive is a continuous improvement in technology and ideas due to each party's self-interest in competing for a stake in the market. I am always wary of the "open source" model as it is not an honest approach and is exactly why 3d printing has in many ways stagnated with a ton of ender clone printers. None unique, none significantly better than the other, just market "white noise". I enjoy seeing someone make a fortune from a unique idea and see this as the best option for the largest amount of people.
Great Point! I believe in IP and Patents, however i think slice is different. Slice engineering patented something that's not just been done before and claimed it as theirs, they also responded terribly to criticism. Also, the ender 3 clones mostly beat it's origin to the ground! Look at the artillery genius or anycubic mega zero 3. Great printers at low costs that smash the Ender 3 with features, quality, etc. Creality sucks, and fortunately others could beat their products!
Innovation existed long before money or language; at the end of the day the law that restricts innovation directly will always be more damaging than the natural difficulty of innovation. Patent law is inherently antithetical to free market principles, maybe the patent system needs more regulation and oversight to deal with issues like this. I have no doubt that any halfway competent judge would throw this patent out in a heartbeat, but slice knows that it won't go before a judge unless they actually take it to a lawsuit; obvious solution for them is to just shut down projects without going to court. Another idea would be to require the patent holder to prove their patent is legitimate and being infringed before they send the legal threats, with the legal system or the losing party fronting those legal costs(streamline the process to make costs reasonable by eliminating lawyers and bureaucracy). This would eliminate most patent trolling, of course there's still the possibility for a brain-dead judge to rule in favour of a brain-dead patent but it would have to pass a new judge everytime you wanted to shut someone down. It would also make the patent system more accessible to those without as much money, allowing the open-source community to operate on a less skewed playing field.
i wonder what it takes to invalidate a patent, their pillar/standoff patent is outrages as in there were prior arts. they are by definition, a patent troll.
Same! It's been publicized and done way before, could we in fact invalidate it? I'm not sure one person can do it due to the amount of lawyer funds Slice is rumored to have available. Might have to consult an expert about this
@@christmas3dp unfortunately it’s a very costly process that can cost up to $50K USD, so it’s not likely to happen. A threat of boycott from the entire community is probably the more realistic and most effective action in this case.
Wasnt aware of this whole saga but Im glad Ive never bought any slice products now. Those are the most ARBITRARY patents ever. Im literally a welder and "bi-metal" products are not a new idea. If someone wanted to "do their research", they could find some small issue like adding a completely useless third allow part to the design and patent it as "tri-metal". "Scratch a liberal, and you'll find a fascist every time"
Just my two cents worth - about 8 years ago built a hotend that essentially used a V6 cold end with 3 long tube spacers bolted to the hot end and running up through the fins to the top flange to test the idea out. Similar to some of the old units you showed. It was effective but never carried on with the design. Slice engineering patent does not really show that much innovation over some of the prior art, they just managed to get a patent on this aspect of hotends first. One thing to understand in the US if I remember correctly it doesn't matter who invents first - it is who publish or patents first. Surprised they didn't try to patent copper hotends. One unfortunate upshot is they are aggressive in defense of their patent, which is their gig if they want too. There are other products on the market....or do like me make you own.
"It doesn't matter who invents first - it is who publish or patents first." The key word here being "publish", as that is not limited to patent submissions. Whenever it can be shown, as here, that a design has been published in any medium or by any party - even the party later submitting the patent request - prior to a patent being granted, US patent law requires the patent being requested to be declared insubmissible and invalid to be granted. When this prior publishing is brought to the attention of the US Patent and Trademark Office after a patent has already been granted, usually but not always by way of the court system, US Patent Law requires the patent in question to be revoked. This is a separate sticking point from those laws which likewise declare invalid any patent whose design is identical or "not significantly unique from" prior existing patents even in other industries, as well as any patent on material composition. Unfortunately, patents fitting each of these disqualifying criteria often slip through because of the volume of requests and limited personnel available to review them and are difficult to actually get revoked because of the many court decisions and contracts expanding arbitration well outside of the boundaries explicitly written into the relevant act, and because so few people have formal training in locating prior art in either digital or traditional media, complicated by the fact that if said art was originally published online many patent trolls direct their first takedown requests at the entities hosting it and those often do not dare reject those requests under any circumstances.
Now that I've actually had time to watch this video and read both sides arguments and evidence, I've come to this conclusion. Communist utopia world. All jokes aside, this is a lesson in bad PR. For your benefit this made an interesting video. To Slice's dismay, this will forever be a mark in their reputation. As for the others, those who are currently using Slice products will still realistically use them. Those who were never going to use Slice products won't use them still . Lastly, people on the fence can decide for themselves as we have the right to choose our equipment as we do not live in a Communist utopia world.
"Lemon" is sour because deep down they know how ridiculous and unoriginal is to patent such a basic idea of supporting something on bolt-on legs. Its like when another company with a fruit in their logo tried to patent product photos before white background. Or the shape of a rectangle with rounded corners. It must be a fruit thing...
Imagine if e3d patented their nozzle design. Slice E could been demanded for ip infringement. They simply reveal themselves to be greedy. An amazing PR strategy could be that they open all their patents like Tesla did.
A someone who is not from USA, I could care less about Slice Engineering. Also, donating to the veterans of the corrupt world police military certanly isn't something positive to talk about to the rest of the world. They got patent just because they are form USA, this kind of patent wouldn't stand at kindergarden playground, let alone in serious court.
what do you have against veterans? You can say whatever you want about the US government and military, what did some guy who signed up for free college and got his legs blasted off for the trouble ever do to you?
@@cpte3729 Whoever is willing to kill and plunder in a foreign country under the guise of "freedom", "democracy" and "defending" your own country on the land of another country (what normal people call invasion) just so he can have "free" education, doesn't deserve any respect. And yes, people make up government and military. Real veterans are those people that defend their country, not attacking others
I don't know how well any of you understand American politics, but that communism diatribe is something I expect nothing less from people in Florida, where Slice is based in. And yes the same people will think that by "donating to veterans" their value is suddenly higher than the rest of you plebeians.
This is why opensource should always if possible be patented, trade marked, copyrighted, documented ect and released on a license that any product it is incorporated into must also be open. Don't allow closed products to freely ride on the backs of open.
you ever wonder if McCarthy himself was the communist spy? He ruined so many peoples careers that he basically discredited any accusation of russian espionage for decades.
@@cpte3729 I think projecting needs to be a legal basis for investigation, the number of pedophile priests who give sermons about evil crimes being committed on children is way too high.
Will never buy one of their products, I just don’t like how they act. 3D printing has born free to be capable of making at home things that aren’t available or that’s simple easier to do this way; and it has to remain a free market, where open source can and will improve the life of everyone of us. Sorry if I made some mistake but I’m Italian and I don’t speak in English very well
Everyone should make a conceded effort to avoid slice engineering and run then into the ground. Let them have their stolen patent but no company behind it. There are many others that outperform offer work as well as their overpriced solutions. Bankruptcy for greedy, overbearing companies
Consumer-side activism almost never leads to bankruptcy. The sad reality is that they will continue to block innovation and gate keep what others accomplished before kind of like Thomas Edison. But supporting the little guy would help a lot in this situation and hopefully someone sues.
Slice's claim to uniqueness is demonstrably false. If the picture of the old hot ends, and cr style hot end wasn't enough to show that then hope is lost. Not only does that claim not hold any water it also fails to justify the patent which should have never been granted in the first place as it is overly broad and to be granted a patent in the US your idea must be non-obvious, which given both the idea's history as well as simplicity, I would argue that it fails on this criteria too. Slice's claim that this doesn't stifle innovation is also clearly false. Its a convenient narrative for them, but the reality is that the goliath is a perfect counter example to this. The patent was literally used to stifle innovation that does far more than the mosquito does, and tries new things that the mosquito doesn't. The patent did exactly what it was supposed to do though, it let them shut potential competition out of the market. Once a company gets big enough this is the kind of behavior it engages in, its part of capitalism. Slice, E3D, and Prusa are companies, not your friends, no matter what they tell you. Patents and other forms of IP were made into law to allow innovation to grow, by letting artists and creators have the time it takes to bring a product to market as well as make enough money on it to make the process worth it. A sort of incentive to create. However the time lengths for these things have not been adjusted in a long time and the US patent office in particular has really failed to keep up with modernity as the variety of new markets has increased dramatically in the last 50 years. Additionally the 11 and 25 year patent windows were created in the days when tech moved slower, and it could take years to bring a product to market. Today a company can take a product from ideation to physically being in customer hands in a month, even less with specific product categories. This combines with the crazy rate at which information can be passed along, and the incredible availability of highly specialized information through platforms like RU-vid means that many people who act in the capacity of their hobbies (like the VZ team) can make incredible contributions to budding industries like ours, and are sometimes actually the best source of innovation. By the time the mosquito hot end related patents expire 3d printing will have long since left anything Slice has to offer today in the dust, provided the other methods of tackling this problem are not also quickly patented by companies as scuzzy as Slice. Why do I call them Scuzzy? Because every company in the 3d printing space has both been under the thumb of patents held by giant companies in the past, and also benefitted massively from OpenSource. Stratasys has historically held a ton of patents for 3d printing technologies since the 80s and at no point made a serious investment in creating a consumer market for the technology. Their patents held this entire hobby from even existing for decades. Stratesys even patented things as simple as enclosures for 3d printers which didn't expire until 2021. They had many years to make real money off of this patent in the consumer space but never produced anything for that market, and instead everyone had to build their own from Ikea Lak tables or whatever else they could manage. It gets worse though because all of the innovation in this hobby is built off the backs of the Rep-Rap Project, an Open Source project which couldn't get off the ground until 2009, when one of Stratesys's patents expired which had been issued in 1988. 3d Printing isn't Open Source because we all like the feel goods, it does so much open source because the hobby as it exists today *could not exist* without open source. When companies like Prusa, E3D and Slice claim to value innovation, and then close off their own source materials, they are already very aware of the history of 3d printing, many of them were actively a part of those early days before ever incorporating. They're trying to claw back revenue from overseas manufacturers who simply have a more efficient manufacturing industry, with lower waged workers; they likely see those people as thieves stealing their profits off of the work they themselves spent years on. In doing this though, these companies betray their origins, and betray those who came before and along side them all innovating keeping that open source going for the sake of the hobby's growth. They also betray you though, the consumer. How many things will you never see because no one can make anything using a very simple idea like an enclosure or support columns, or hob gear for extrusion, lest they fear legal repercussions? We'll never really know what could have been because that's the nature of the beast. But you can be certain that the 3d printing world loses something important with every patent gotten; you can be certain that as long as this behavior continues to generate money, and that companies who do it survive, they will keep doing it; you can be certain that eventually there will be no more room for small innovators like the VZ team because to innovate you'll eventually need a legal team, and to pay for patent licenses (if anyone will sell them to you). Slice isn't Evil, neither are Prusa or E3D, nor anyone else who gets a patent (or at least they're not evil because they got them); they're a company, and companies are not part of the community, companies are here to make money, and they'll use your belief that they are part of the community to pull what extra dollars out of your wallet they can. The people in them may be part of the community, but if they make money off of that they have a conflict of interest when it comes to what is best for the community and hobby. When someone has a conflict of interest you should take their words with salt, and carefully examine what they have to gain with their words. At the very least patent acquirers in this market, in this hobby are exploiting a broken system for their benefit, fully aware of the potential damage and of the giants on whose shoulders they stand. So treat them as such. Make your decisions on who to buy from knowing what they know, knowing who they are, and knowing what they're doing. Vote with your wallet for the future of the hobby you want to see, keeping all that in mind.
I will never buy, sell or promote anything to do with wankers like Slice Engineering, their clear Patent trolling will only hurt their bottom line as they will be losing sales more and more.
Hahaha specially in the 3D printing industry! Remember the Prusa Mk1 or 2? Literally normal bolts and screws 😂 or the 649183649174 iterations of the Ender 3 😐🤣 open source has not stopped Makerbot, nor Ultimaker, nor Creality, nor Prusa, nor E3D (and the list can go on for a long time)
8:38 I was going to write a wiki page on “Invest in Original Creators/Developers” or something along these lines, and this is a GREAT diagram that conveys how i think about this problem and how that is a solution! DAMN GOOD VIDEO
It's clearly a ridiculous patent that should have never been granted. How can you patent what has already been around for so long. I personally will choose not deal with a company that acts like Slice Engineering has.
This is a great video, and I agree that the patent is ridiculous and made for an unoriginal idea. Slice Engineering shouldn't have that patent because it is 1. unoriginal and 2. limiting for others to use similar ideas because it is something someone else came up with literally years prior. I hope their patent gets revoked so everyone can make use of this concept
One more reason to never use Slice Engineering products. Their Mosquito already looks ugly compared to Phaetus Dragon. And now they also suppressed the creativity of the 3d printing community.
Slice going on an anti-communist rant: 100% confirming me not liking this company in the slightest. Capitalist trolls who'll never see any of my money.
It's simple.... # don't buy slice....there's just too many better options out there. See if they are innovative enough to come up with something new. If not it will be fun to watch the company sink.
I agree in general with Slice that patents can be important to protect IP and help companies recoup costs of developing new technologies. The problem comes from Slice patenting something that's so basic and frankly obvious. As you pointed out in the video people were using additional pillars to support the heater block years ago. So all Slice did was change a bolt to a tube and patent it. Also, they can make patents. But the do not have to go after everyone for using. It's not like copyright where you protect it or lose it. They can patent this to protect from direct clones, and companies that do not innovate. But why don't they offer free licenses to original concepts like Goliath? Goliath is obviously not a clone of Mosquito. This video was spot on. Calling out Slices BS. I am glad, when I was building my Voron I was looking at using Slice stuff with my LGX extruder, that was when I first learnt how crappy Slice is as a company. They would have had me as a loyal customer, trying to support an American company. Now I will not touch their products.
Guys, stop everything you're doing! I just patented washersl/spacers. Please remove all spacers in every product you own that uses them within 24h or you'll hear from my lawyers
It's so dumb to me like why on earth would this be patentable in the first place? It's literally screws/struts acting as structural reinforcement. This is pillars people. Pillars are thousands of years old tech...geez.
the fact that they even got the patent in the first place is a mystery, and just goes to show how much of a joke the american patent office and courts are. there's been hotends with screws as spacers long before slice engineering was even a thing.
As far as I'm aware a patent can not be grant if it has already been shown in the public space before application, maybe I'm just stupid. if you patent someone else's idea that is immoral bad slice engineering. because the support design has already been shown surely makes slice engineering patent invalid.
In the US you have 1 year from the first public disclosure until you have to file for a provisional and then one additional year from when the provisional is filed to put in for the full patent.
@@Big3dprinter If there is prior art you can request the patent be re-examined by the patent office. Chances are you can work around the claims. If some one wants to break down the claims that is fine but I think the patent they have is slightly more involved than just having 4 pillars. The company also is not acting like a patent troll as they are actively working to sell the product and not just suing others in a shakedown for licence fees as a non practicing entity.
If slice engineering would do a good job in releasing good and affordable hotends we would buy there! But they do none. Their hotends only walk half the way or less and cost enormous amounts of money! And now they try to get rid of others having mich better ideas... Ok! So slice engineering is one of those horrible A-hole-companies as well...
@@OscarOliu the best in terms of price, yes! In terms of being really good and affordable at the same time: NO!!! How about you look at the Goliath and what's behind it And you'll see, what SE is definitely missing. As an engineer there's a saying: everyone can do expensive! That means, that throwing a big amount of money onto a problem might solve it. But not in an effective way. And that's, what SE is doing: producing mediocre product for lumps of money.
@@haenselundgretel654 I've literally watched the entire development of the LSD/Goliath. I'm not saying slice is affordable. But it's not a piece of crap. That's the kind of shit that makes your argument invalid. You can be mad at them for what they do. But to say it's not a quality product is disingenuous
@@OscarOliu I never said they'd make bad products in terms of quality. But why don't you buy a plane the next time instead of a car? Because the price difference is horrible. Did you configure a magnum+ hotend with everything in it? Almost 500$/€... That's more than my CoreXY printers cost per unit in total. You always have to take the price into account! For their heavy price I expect them to do all the stuff. But let's say it this way: Vez3D didn't invent the Goliath because his Magnus+ was sooo good, but far away from being good overall...
@@haenselundgretel654 I get it. I just don't think the magnum is really made for hobbyists though. So cost is irrelevant. They likely got the patent on it for companies like mellow that flat out stole the design. And for other bigger industry players that might copy it for their 10k plus printers. Also I'm not sure on cost but the Goliath is likely to be very niche. Doubt anyone on a voron or annex is going to be using it. So I don't expect it to be cheap in any way. That being said. At this point the magnum isn't even a hobby hotend. They've angered everyone in the community to the point no one even models mounts for it on newer printers. Also. Shims are fucking stupid and we need to stop using em anyway. There's better methods
After reading the patent, I think if we don't use spacer made of stainless steel, zirconia or any combination of the two, we're not infringing the patent. Titanium will be okey like they do right now.
Holy crap. I didn't really mind Slice before, but coming out as absurdly capitalistic military supporters (let's be real, supporting the military is what you're doing it you donate to veterans so the US can produce more veterans) is pretty damn terrible. This hade made me completely flip from not caring about Slice to absolutely being disgusted by them. I will definitely never buy a Slice product in the future.
Yep, this seals the fact that I will never be purchasing any products from slice again. Hope they enjoy all the business that they will be losing from the community.
You know I was considering buying a mosquito hotend but this is ridiculous. It's fine to enforce your patterns and go after exact clones of your products (Triangle labs etc). But it's another thing to go after a completely different and unique product that's in an ENTIRELY different price bracket. This isn't patent protection it's patent exploitation, get a grip Slice.
This is the same kind of patenting issue and response that stiffles any progress in the industry. Much like the Stratasys PATENT US6722872B1 which they were able to keep in place for 20 years that prevented the rest of the industry from being able to implore the use of a heating chamber in their designs. Did this help anyone? Does Slice's decision help anyone?
Didnt my first creality ender 3 have standoffs on the hotend? Sure its been modified so I don't have the original hotend anymore. but I thought that was before slice? How can you patent something already in existence?
I will never purchase from Slice engineering, that’s my contribution to this. But I will definitely by a VZbot with either Phaetus or Goliath Anyway, it’s mostly US law firm that try to enforce this.
Yeah I'm about as libertarian as anyone, and as anyone that isn't currently ODing on copium will tell you, that means very definitively not communist, but "we added spacers to stop hot thing from touching cold thing" isn't patentable 'technology'; it's adding fucking spacers. "How do I stop the hot thing from making the cold thing hot? Oh, I know, I'll just not let them touch" "you can't do that, I invented that technology, I own it" You didn't invent not letting a hot thing touch a cold thing, I mean WTF? 3:45 literally the entirety of linux would like to have a word with that graph
As explained in 2:38, the Goliath was manufactured and sold by Mellow3D in China. On this same date the slice patent passed in china and so the Goliath was struck
@@ItsDoneWithMirrors youp he was speaking french in one of his videos, manufacturing in china and selling where is no patent on standoffs sounds logical but i so much hassle and added cost. Last hope is kinematic coupling like in DropEffect XG or china being china and selling the goliath until slice will get mad again and the cycle repeats
Cheers mate and good morning! I am quite random to the public as a whole, yet in some communities you may have seen me before. Hope you liked he video :)
I refuse to backup patents. If we want to grow our knowledge as a species, we need to innovate and tweak. The lightbulb was not the invention of one man alone, it came frome that man that made glass, electricity, wire. It came from the man who decided to have gas lit homes, it came from everyone before who created the base idea and it was tweaked and improved until today, we are much farther than we could have immagined because multiple people saw a problem, 1 fixed theirs, letting the next fix theirs and so on. Locking this down is greed. If you want to sell a product, make a good product, if someone makes a worse product that looks like yours but has their name on it, looks beter for you, to sell a product then make a good damn product. Dont say "i dont allow you to make a better product than me" and claim that its all to HELP innovation. It is backwards and unfortunately while i have always loved the mosquito hotend. I actually never intend to give slice a dime of my money and ill look elsewhere....
In 2019 Toyota released nearly 24,000 of its patents for royalty-free use, including patents for its modern electric and hybrid vehicle technology. 24000! Do you hear this Slice Engineering?
I dislike one trick pony companies, mosquito is their only innovation. Copperhead is noting to write home about. They are trying so hard to stay relevant, when the needs of the high end market surpassed what the mosquito magnum can offer so long ago. Phaetus offers such a wide range of different styles of hotends with different cooling options and different mounts, while Slic3 has only mosquito. But even with that, you can see that Phaetus was careful when designing XG hotend, the kinematic coupling does pretty much same thing as standoffs while not being standoffs.
Galeaf is the most interesting thing to happen in this market lately. If there is a way to circumvent this bureaucracy, users will gladly support the VZ BOT team. They make a really cool product. Slice have earned themselves a reputation as assholes in a market where there are plenty of options to do without them.
just by itself the 2014 photo of the reprap movement, should serve to annul the patent of the pillars of the slice, because what they patented as being their invention, is a lie because it had already been invented by someone else. but I leave that to the lawyers.
Then what gives Copycat Chinese companies the right to register names such as: LDO, Voron and others that have spent time developing their products? Babu Labs seems to be hot in the market now. No open source there either but, everyone is buying one......
It may have been a stretch bringing Apple into this conversation. They are only known for proprietary technology, and will go as far as going after their own customer base to protect their IP.
Standoffs... not spacers. So no compression or tension between heatsink and hotblock..and no tension on spacers. Also takoto uses a top plate and one can say its not part of the heatsink
I'm more surprised that their stupid patent was allowed to go through. That's not innovative, utilizing a collar type spacer as part of a heat break assembly is not anything new. Goliath should modify their hotend to use a bar type spacer or non-tube design for a slim rigid spacer. I'm building a couple new printers currently, I was considering Slice hot ends after hearing good things. But their response has completely turned me off to their products. They've been added to my "never buy" list.
Im just now finding out about this. It's a shame too, I was going to use one of their hotends in my upcoming voron build and I was considering strapping one to my ender too. I'm glad I saw this before I pulled the trigger.
I don't get it why this is even a discussion? A patent is a patent, if someone decides for a patent they do it for a good reason, you don't need to follow the reprap spirit. But that communist phrase was unnecessary anger. That's unprofessional! I think Vez-Bot did bad research, teased the community of a new style of hotend, lost much money on that product and now uses the community let their anger out. Slice should apologise for that unprofessional statement and Vez should just think of another solution to the problem with the heat break (different design or buy permission) to bring this Hotend with a really cool heat block to market.
Would be cool if we could create a decentralized entity (ahem...on the cardano network) that would be the "company" and it could act as a patent holder that would have an automatic, open source clause. Anyone could attempt to patent something, voted in catalyst, paid for through the blockchain treasury. This could provide patent protection by being patented. If that makes sense. Some companies do something like this, but this would be more transparent.
I have been questioning Slice for awhile now even though I own and like their hotend along with the Dragon and Rapido. This is another strike IMO which isn't enough reason to completely write them off but combined with the absolutely insane levels of spam I get via text message after purchase is the final strike IMO. They probably think their issue is lack of advertising, it's not. They were shunned by Voron guys and as a result other extruders excelled. I have no doubt had they not been so petty the Mosquito would be much more popular today.
