Is there no technology so good that "patent holders" don't want to block it? This is why I hate IP. If they had patents when the agricultural revolution hit, we'd still be hunter-gatherers.

As the VCR was to the movie industry, so will the RepRap be to Big Patent. Hopefully complete with an analogue of the Betamax precedent the first time some idiot tries to sue a 3D printer company.

Of course, if a RepRap that can make ALL its parts (except maybe a few chips that are COTS) emerges, shutting down ALL the 3D printer companies might be in vain; the thing would napsterize itself and not just everything else. :)

Zachary:

RepRap will be nearly completely irrelevant to "Big Patent," whatever that may be. RepRap can duplicate parts in plastic, but the speed of production and cost of raw materials means that a duplicate of any high volume plastic product will be well beyond the cost of buying one in a store.

Couple the speed of duplication with the need for esoteric and metal parts and you find that RepRap may be interesting technology for prototype parts, but as a Napster-type threat to patents, nah.

David:

To which "Agricultural Revolution" are you referring? There have been several.

The current version of it may indeed be no threat to Big Patent; likewise the Apple IIe was no threat to Big Copyright. Wait 20 years, though, and ...