Gov’t Contractor Copies Open Source 3D Printing Concept and Patents It
This is the claim they were granted:<p>“A cable-driven additive manufacturing system comprising:<p>an end effector configured for linear translation within a three-dimensional workspace along an x-axis, a y-axis, and a z-axis;<p>an aerial hoist suspending the end effector within the three-dimensional workspace by at least one suspension cable, the aerial hoist having a static position within the three-dimensional workspace whereby the aerial hoist is not translated along the x-axis with the end effector and the aerial hoist is not translated along the y-axis with the end 
effector;<p>an aerial cable winder configured to control linear translation of the end effector along the z-axis;<p>a plurality of motion-control base stations disposed below the aerial hoist and configured to control linear translation of the end effector in an x-y plane defined by the x-axis and the y-axis, each motion-control base station comprising a base station cable winder;<p>a plurality of motion-control cables, at least one of the plurality of motion-control cables running from each of the base station cable winders to the end effector;<p>at least one tension-control base station; and<p>at least one tension-control cable running from the tension-control base station to the end effector.”<p>Considering all the requirements, it is quite narrow. This means if a particular implementation doesn’t have all of these things it is not covered by this patent.