This IP Lawyer Thinks 3D Printing Will Rock Our Worlds

How big and disruptive the 3D printing industry will get may be a matter of debate, but intellectual property attorney John Hornick is not only on the bullish side, he is predicting a full-blown revolution.

Why? Because although consumers hear a great deal more about newer consumer-facing companies in the space, such as Brooklyn-based MakerBot Industries, there are older companies looking for a foothold in a global 3D printing industry that a recently released 2016 Wohlers Report pegged at nearly $5.2 billion.

Besides working with 3D businesses as an intellectual property attorney, Washington, D.C.-based Hornick is also the author of a new self-published book, 3D Printing Will Rock the World.

We asked him a few questions about the industry in a phone interview, and below are his remarks, edited for clarity.

You’re writing this as someone with ties to the 3D industry. Explain what you do.

I’m an IP attorney, and my firm Finnegan is one of the largest IP firms in the world, with 350 professionals who are lawyers and support clients on issues like patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. We have a 3D printing work group, 30 lawyers in that group who support our clients in the 3D business. The 3D printing [clients] involve any kind of 3D printing, any kind of company, any kind of technology any kind of intellectual property. Some are large companies that might be traditional manufacturing companies thinking about how they can use it or how it can hurt them. One of our clients is Bosch, which owns the Dremel [3D printers for consumers] brand. We also represent materials companies trying to determine how to sell and develop materials in this space. I got into this area from a legal standpoint, and then I got very interested and passionate about it, and I started developing a database. I realized at some point, I had enough information for the book.

The stocks of 3D printing companies like 3D Systems (NYSE: DDD) and Stratasys (Nasdaq: SSYS) have taken a beating on Wall Street over the last two years. Why?

You can’t judge the industry by the stock prices. They hit a high in 2013, but they were overvalued and then they started coming back to ranges where they should have been. This is an industry that has seen 27 percent – 32 percent growth rate for the last 25 years. In terms of manufacturing, here you have a machine that’s capable of making a part for products in one machine, different from the way things are done traditional.ly where you have 10, 12, or 25 machines, and operators. Your labor costs come way down, manufacturing costs come way down. That makes it possible to make things in the United States, make things where they are needed.

When do you see that shift happening?

It’s already happening. It’s not going to be that it shifts back to U.S. and we have big factories. There are hundreds of fabricators around the U.S. now, and they are small factories. Fifty percent of U.S. manufacturing companies have fewer than 10 employees. What 3D manufacturing does is it leads to a lot of small factories.

Which industries are pivotal users of 3D manufacturing already?

It’s aerospace, health care, and then it’s all kinds of parts for all kinds of machines, in any industry. For the aerospace industry, it allows you to build complex parts. In healthcare, it’s being adopted because everything in healthcare is customized and it’s perfect for customization.

Is the fact that 3D printer manufacturer MakerBot Industries is shifting its production to China troubling?

I think its unfortunate; I don’t think it makes much of a difference. One of the advantages that MakerBot had was that people liked the fact that it was made in the United States and it was made in Brooklyn. [There are] over 300 companies that are making consumer grade printers, and people really haven’t been buying those machines anyway. The fascinating, interesting, and important stuff is happening mostly on the industrial side. I also do believe that we will eventually have a machine in our home, it’s important to have a consumer side for that purpose. In the short term, we’re seeing people use it mostly to build toys, simple replacement parts like knobs, something to hold your remote controls. In the long term, we’ll start to see more sophisticated machines that can do much more sophisticated things like print a smartphone.

Will 3D printing put people out of jobs, given that you foresee smaller factories?

The analogy I give is that when we got around on the horse, we had horse-related jobs. When the automobiles came along we had jobs related to cars that no one could even conceive of when we were running around on our horses. There will be some companies that are looking to adapt, but there will be new jobs created. Those small factories, service bureaus, they’ll be all over the place making things. Right now there are 300 companies making these 3D printers. There is software development for 3D printing, and startups that are focusing on the space, and all of those are jobs. If you start making things closer to where things are needed, then the whole supply chain is brought to places where consumers need them.

Source: Upstart Business Journal, Teresa Novellino
Photo: 3D Printing Will Rock the World by John Hornick.