The heart of the 3D printing matter

Innovation is one of the cornerstones of human development. Companies invest billions in research and development, but there is no way to guarantee that a research project will result in a profitable outcome.

The patent system is a way to mitigate this investment in the dark. When a company develops a new technology, obeying certain criteria of patentability, it is rewarded with the possibility of protecting its invention via a patent in the jurisdictions in which it wants to commercialise. This allows exclusivity for marketing that invention in the countries in which the patent was granted within a certain period of time, excluding third parties from using this invention for their own profit.

In recent years it has been debated whether companies should be allowed to protect, via patent, 3D-printed organs and tissues. This technology is no longer ‘in the near future’ but in the present, and promises to change the landscape of organ transplantation.