3D printing part of core patent expired year or out support policy

After releasing the world's first color-and-multi-material 3D printer, the leading enterprise in 3D printing Stratasys-endur, which can be used as prototypes for household appliances, consumer goods, automotive parts and laboratory equipment.

April 24, Stratasys application Engineer Shihui told the 21st century economic reporter, "Our materials have been sold in China, as an important part of the company's global market, the Chinese market is in sync with the world." ”

Shihui said that the company has about 10 core distributors in China, serving the entire mainland region. A Stratasys Shenzhen customer revealed that stratasys2012 sold about 300 3D printers in China in 2013, about 450-470 units in the year.

But the market is poised for a strong competitor. At the end of March this year, HP, the 2D print giant, announced that it would enter the 3D printer market by the end. The main reason for HP's decision is that the Stratasys 3D printing part of the core patent has expired or will expire within a year, which will provide a condition for the industry to develop into a competitive market.

In 2013, Hewlett-Packard in the print market share of nearly 40%, now into the 3D printer market will not spend a lot of time and money to develop new technologies.

Shihui Frankly, the failure of the patent is basically attributed to Stratasys. By the end of this year, the company's FDM (fused deposition modelin, hot-melt deposit solidification molding) Some of the patents will expire, "but there are still a lot of core technology patents still belong to the Stratasys."

Competition will be beneficial to market cultivation. According to Juniperresearch, a UK market research firm, the global 3D printer will sell more than 1 million units by 2018, and the industry believes sales can only reach 44,000 this year; market research firm Analysys International (Canalys) also predicts that 2014 Global 3D Print market turnover will increase from 2.5 billion U.S. dollars last year to 3.8 billion U.S. dollars, to 2018, will soar to 16.2 billion U.S. dollars.

This means that the 3D print market will grow by more than five times times this year to 2018, with an annual composite growth rate of 45.7% per cent.

In Shihui's view, future applications based on 3D printing will continue to increase, 3D printer prices will be greatly reduced, thereby entering the mass market.

In our country, 3D printing still stays in the research stage. Tracker material is 3D printer pilot, through the technology successfully "test printing" out of 10 solid housing, since then, Vanke board chairman Wang Shi said the company to three years later with 3D printer printing house.

At present, China's 3D printing industry, equipment, materials, software and other core areas can achieve self-sufficiency in different degrees, and in the cultural creativity, industry, biomedical and other fields have been applied.

"But that's far from enough. "China's 3D Printing technology Industry Alliance executive director Rojun said," The gap between China and Europe is mainly reflected in the size of the gap rapidly widening. ”

European and American 3D Printing enterprises are generally in the scale of 20~30 billion level, and China has not yet basically a corporate sales revenue over billion, and Europe and the United States in the equipment level is significantly higher than our country, the use of metal powder and other materials are also dependent on imports.

Rojun revealed that the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Industry and other departments are conducting relevant research, the end of this year is expected to have some support policies.