Slice Engineering Statement on Open Source and Patent Protection

Slice Engineering believes in open source, particularly in the hobbyist sector, and has developed many open-source products such as the Copperhead^® Hotend. We also have commercial business that requires patent protection, an accepted norm in our industry, and we make our industrial products available to the consumer sector accompanied by free technical data and 3D files.

A former Slice affiliate originally copied our product closely enough to infringe on Slice’s patent. We handled this issue in a professional, legal manner. We attempted to work with this individual ahead of time to advise him that he would be in violation of our patent, but not only did he continue, he made his product more like ours. He also used an overseas manufacturer against whom we’ve had to enforce patent/trademark infringement multiple times in the past. He was very aware of these prior issues, so this was clear disregard for our definitive legal standing.