Hey everybody. I've heard a lot of discussion recently about 3dp patents, and how they effect the community. I'm a bit confused, so I just wanted to throw some questions out here to clarify. First off, many people have argued that patents are dangerous to the open-source community, and Makerbot comes up a lot in these discussions. Is this because Makerbot patented their design(s), or because they were making moves towards this? Also, do any companies have patents for their versions of the technology, or is the entire community open-source? That sounds a bit too good to be true, but I guess anything's possible.

Lastly, what's the business with these original 3dp patents expiring? Why is this beneficial to the community? Does this also mean new patents by modern companies (such as Stratasys, or any of the other big guys) can take their place? If so, would this hurt the community?

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm very interested in this stuff and I can't seem to get this information anywhere else. Any help would be awesome.