The Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IGE/IPI) will inform about questions raised by 3-D printing when it comes to intellectual property rights. The free German-language event will take place on March 23 in Bern. Registrations are possible on the IGE/IPI event page.
Professor Stefan Berthold from the Chair of Immaterial Goods Law at the ETH Zürich will give an overview of 3-D printing (also known as “additive production”) processes, illuminating related intellectual property questions in various countries. Another subject of discussion will be how 3-D printing influences industrial and private usage, and whether problems such as those currently faced by the music and film industry are to be expected in the future.
Possible effects of innovative 3-D printing techniques on intellectual property rights holders are already stimulating discussion. A study of the Gartner public opinion research centre, for instance, aroused attention with its prognosis of 100 billion in annual revenue losses by 2018 due to the use of 3-D printers in counterfeit production (cf. our German-language report).
