Dear Hangprinter fans,

recently it was painfully brought to my attention that there are people in the US who thought it would be an insanely great idea to wrap the Hangprinter concept, which has been open source for years longer, in a US patent and publish it in January 2022. This patent should never have existed, as its contents are not a novelty and therefore not suitable for patenting. This case shows once again how bad the patent system as a whole is and what fatal consequences can arise for social and civil development services in favor of the patent holders as key technology holders and profiteers.

Torbjörn Ludvigsen has launched a fundraising campaign to take legal action against this. We therefore call on you to support him in this. As part of the Hangprinter community, we are also donating to fight this miserable example of patent research and publication. We hope that the patent will be overturned and that the technology will remain open source, as it has been since 2014.

Further links and sources

• The patent in question: https://www.patentguru.com/US11230032B2
• To the fundraising campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/keep-hangprinter-free (here you can find a currency converter from Euro to Swedish Krona → https://www.xe.com/de/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=200&From=EUR&To=SEK) 
• To explosive articles on...
  • hangprinter.org 
  • heise.de
  • 3dprintingindustry.com