10 Ridiculously Illegal Things You Can Make With A 3-D Printer

8. A 3-D Logo

This example is about the ever expanding potential for 3-D printing to exploit grey areas in legislation. If there is a rule waiting to be bent then in my experience there is someone prepared to bend it. Such innovators are to be applauded for challenging the arbitrary nature of 'absolute' laws in human affairs. In Boston, Massachusetts, you will find the Boston Bruins NHL hockey club. Like many other clubs, they have an official logo. I mention them because after they won the cup in 2011 their logo was converted into a 3-D file by fans and distributed as ornaments for free. This began a trend and you can now find various logos of other sports brands adorning iPhone cases, jewellery, etc. Logos are valuable items for the obvious reason that a sports club, or any other highly regarded institution for that matter, can make sackloads of cash by branding their own merchandise. A logo is normally registered as a 2-D concept and if you want to make a 3-D facsimile then you would have to put some serious creativity into the process. You would not simply be copying something that already existed. Leaving aside whether the finished article is actually the intellectual property of the original logo's registrant, what happens if the item is distributed for free? It's guaranteed that the sports club would be quite displeased when people stop buying their branded merchandise in favour of cool, potentially better, 'bootleg' versions. Under existing intellectual property law my guess is that 3-D logos would be illegal, but that it would take some expensive litigation to prove it.