E3D's Patent Pledge

(last updated January 2026) 

We’ve been meaning to update our Patent Pledge for a while. The original was written by Sanjay, whose vision, integrity, and sheer bloody-minded optimism helped shape not just E3D, but the RepRap and wider maker community around it. He wrote it at a time when a scrappy open-source movement was maturing into a real industry, and when clones and copycats were starting to threaten the invent make sell cycle that kept new ideas flowing. It has served us well, but the world has moved on – and so have we.

This is our refreshed Patent Pledge. It keeps everything we promised before, adds clarity around how we now use IP, and reflects the reality that 3D printing is no longer just a hobbyist niche – it is a global industry with serious money, serious players, and serious consequences if we get IP wrong for everyone. We're also in a great position where, through fantastic working relationships with OEMs, we hope to bring everyone along for the ride.

What hasn’t changed (and never will) 

E3D is still a company built by and for makers. We still believe that open hardware, accessible designs, and transparent engineering are the best ways to move this industry forward. We still fund that work in the same simple way: we invent things, we manufacture those things, we sell them for more than they cost to make, and we pour the surplus back into more invention and better products. 

E3D Invent-Invest Cycle

Our original Patent Pledge made a binding commitment that we would never enforce E3D patents against anything done privately and non commercially, or against academics conducting experiments and research. That commitment stands, unchanged and undiluted, and this new version is not a regression or a claw back of rights in any way. If you are an individual tinkering in your shed, a hacker space, a school, or a university lab, you remain safe from E3D patent enforcement – full stop. 

We will also continue to open source designs where it makes sense, share knowledge, publish documentation, and support community projects, just as we always have. Open source is not dead at E3D; it is part of our DNA, and this Patent Pledge is one of the tools we use to protect it. 

How the world has changed

When we published our first Patent Pledge, the landscape was shifting from pure RepRap experimentation to more capable, polished printers built by emerging OEMs shipping at real volume. Most of those OEMs respected our work, but we also had to fight hard against low effort clones – frequently poor copies that infringed our designs, abused our trademarks, and misled customers while adding nothing back to the ecosystem. At that time, we leaned heavily on registered designs as a practical way to deal with blatant copying of our physical products. 


Since then, the industry has exploded. Innovative OEMs have led a wave of growth that’s made high quality 3D printing more accessible than ever to individuals, businesses, and institutions. E3D has evolved with that shift: we are now less about single products in isolation and more about developing core technologies that underpin extrusion performance across entire platforms – things like extruder designs, Revo, ObXidian, High Flow, and other new technologies. 

We still punch well above our weight in terms of innovation, but the risk profile has changed. The main threat is no longer a handful of cheap clones on AliExpress; it is the possibility that our core technologies are adopted at scale by OEMs or large manufacturers without fair compensation or collaboration. That kind of behaviour doesn’t just hurt us – it undermines the very revenue stream that funds the next wave of open projects, better documentation, new community hardware, and the long term health of the ecosystem. 

Why we now file more patents 

To keep inventing at the level this industry now demands, we need tools that both protect our work and enable fair partnerships with serious OEMs and ecosystem players. That’s why, in addition to registered designs, trademarks, and trade secrets, we are now filing significantly more patents on core technologies. As an aside, a report from 2023 shows that international patent families in 3D printing technologies were growing at an average annual rate of 26.3% – nearly eight times faster than for all technology fields combined in the same period (3.3%). This reflects the excitement we all have in the potential of 3D printing, but equally confirms to us that we need to be proactive.

We approach patents with the same philosophy we set out in the original Patent Pledge: 

  • We patent the specific things we actually invented, not the broadest possible concepts that block good faith innovation by others.
  • We use those patents to secure our ability to invest in R&D and to underpin robust, long term OEM relationships, aftermarket ecosystems, and shared value. 
  • We treat patents as a tool for collaboration and growth, not a bludgeon to shut down legitimate competitors or the maker community. 

Today, our patent portfolio includes, among others, the following granted patents: 

  • E3D Revo 
    United Kingdom: Application No. 2106553.7, Registration No. GB2606404.
  • “Squeezetube” (extrusion / melt path technology) 
    China: Application No. 2021800410697, Registration No. CN115697674A. 
    Europe: Application No. 21719221, Registration No. EP4132765.
  • ObXidian (wear resistant / nozzle technology) 
    United Kingdom: Application No. 2107196.4, Registration No. GB2601021. 
    United Kingdom: Application No. 2310877.2, Registration No. GB2618699. 
    United States: Application No. 18/956,478, Registration No. US12496778. 

These sit alongside earlier registered designs such as our Revo nozzle EU design registration (e.g. EU Registered Design No. 008670517 0002), and they are part of a broader, actively managed IP portfolio. In addition to the granted rights listed above, we also have several more patents that are published and pending, and others that are filed but not yet published as part of our ongoing development roadmap. In the future we will upload a table and keep it up-to-date, adding a backlink to this article so it's easy to find.

We help to protect your innovation

Our network of industry contacts is second-to-none, but we also work closely with independent inventors and small teams. If you’re looking for a commercialisation platform we also quietly offer that support. With go-to-market expertise and our manufacturing & distribution relationships, we can provide IP stewardship to help take select innovations to market under mutually agreed terms that respect creators’ rights.   

How we will defend our IP 

Our starting preference is always collaboration. We would far rather work with OEMs and partners to integrate our technology properly – with shared value, robust supply chains, and clear customer benefits – than spend time in litigation. But when it comes to our core IP, we now have both the policy and the backing to defend it when we must. 

To support this, we maintain: 

  • A clear internal policy for when and how we enforce our IP, based on how it affects our reputation, our partners, or our ability to be a commercially sustainable business.
  • Dedicated commercial and technical IP management, responsible for monitoring the market, marking our products, and maintaining a public register of key rights so that “we didn’t know” is no defence. 
  • IP infringement insurance
  • Financial planning at board level to ensure we can actually follow through when enforcement is necessary. 

Enforcement is not something we do lightly, but it is something we are prepared to do. If a manufacturer imports, sells, or integrates products that infringe our patents or other IP in a way that undermines our brand, harms our OEM partners, or attacks a key revenue stream, we will act. That action may target both the party manufacturing the infringing goods and any company importing or distributing them in our key markets. This is an existential issue for us: we will defend our IP robustly where necessary, because if we cannot sustain the invent-make-sell loop, we cannot keep delivering the innovations that everyone benefits from. 

For OEMs and serious commercial users, the message is simple: we take our IP seriously, we expect it to be respected, and we are a reliable partner that will protect the shared value created when you choose to work with us. Collaboration is the keystone.

IP as a force for good 

We do not see IP as a way to hoard value; we see it as a way to make value creation sustainable and fair. Our IP strategy is built around three pillars: value creation, protection, and sharing. The revenue from our patented and protected products is what allows us to keep funding deep R&D, hiring talented engineers, and pushing the limits of extrusion, materials, and reliability. 

We actively license and collaborate where it makes sense: 

  • We are open to discussing licensing of our patents and other IP with OEMs and ecosystem partners who want to build on our technology rather than copy around it.
  • We are also always on the lookout for interesting third party IP that we can help commercialise, integrate into platforms, and bring to market at scale.
  • A good example is our relationship with Bondtech and their CHT patent, where collaboration around their technology has helped propel extrusion performance across the market. 

When we protect and license IP well, everyone wins: makers get better tools, OEMs get differentiated and trusted systems, and innovators (inside and outside E3D) get rewarded in a way that encourages them to keep creating. This is the ecosystem we want to nurture – one where IP is a framework for trust and shared upside, not a weapon used to lock people out. 

A reassurance to makers and academics 

To the grassroots makers, tinkerers, educators, and researchers who got us here: you are still at the heart of what we do. The spirit that informed Sanjay’s original Patent Pledge is alive and well in this updated version. We are spelling things out more clearly for OEMs and industry players, and we are taking a firmer line with commercial infringement, but we are not turning our backs on the community that built E3D in the first place. 

So, to be absolutely explicit: 

  • We will never enforce our patents against individuals using, modifying, or experimenting with our technology privately and non commercially.
  • We will never enforce our patents against academics and researchers conducting experiments, publishing work, or pushing the boundaries of what this technology can do in an educational or research context.
  • We will continue to support open source projects, contribute designs where appropriate, and engage in good faith dialogue with the community about how we can do better. 
  • If your hobby or research project grows wings and you find you've created a business, we're friendly and you can reach out to us as early as you need to. We're here to help you grow, not stifle you.

If you are building cool things, learning, teaching, or exploring – we are on your side. If you are an OEM or commercial operator who wants to work with our technology respectfully and collaboratively – we are ready to talk. If you are looking to exploit our innovations at scale without contributing back – then you should take this Patent Pledge and our IP posture seriously.