3-D Printing: Strategies to Anticipate the Next Disruptive Technology

It is clear that the advent of large-scale, consumer 3-D printing is fast approaching, and with it will come a host of complex and uncertain legal issues for businesses as they try to protect their proprietary goods.

March 1, 2013

Personal computing, the Internet, social networking: Each of these disruptive technologies created new legal challenges to the prevailing order. And yet, even as businesses — and the courts — continue to sort out lingering legal challenges to yesterday’s latest disruptions, a new technology exists on the horizon that promises to unsettle the landscape yet again. One could be forgiven for believing that 3-D printing — essentially the ability to design and "print" three-dimensional objects — remains either in the scope of far-fetched science fiction, or out of reach for the masses on account of being hopelessly expensive and complicated. Both of those assumptions, however, are wrong.

Originally published in the March 2013 issue of The Corporate Counselor. Reprinted with permission.

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