Patents on DLP ?

[StefanIv]

Last I knew, the bare minimum to apply for a patent was about $1000. But that was if you did all the work yourself. Lawyers and patent draftsmen (Patent drawings are a of certain style) run the price up. There may be different fees for certain technologies to help limit patent trolls. But I may wrong on this.

Yeah, $1000 is the cost for "relatively simple" type of invention. It goes high as $3000 for software related or complex patents. But a more important question is: How will institutions regulate 3d printing in general? Because there are some serious intellectual property issues. I found an interesting article that covers these things, but what do you think? From a legal point of view, DIY 3d printing seems too good to be true. You can't just take some design or copyrighted material and print it yourself - even for your own use, can you?