 For those who have just joined us, good evening. We're just waiting for a few more people to make their way through into the seminar. I guess it's sort of the digital equivalent of people slowly shuffling into the room. So let them digitally shuffle in a little bit more and we'll start in maybe three or four minutes. Okay, then I think we'll make a start. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the final simple evening seminar for this term. For those who don't know simple stands for the Center of Intellectual Property and Information Law. I'm John Liddicoat. I'm a senior research associate in the law faculty and a member of simple. I'm thrilled to introduce our speaker tonight, Professor Nadoonsha Mendez from Bournemouth University. I won't read out Professor Mendez's biography that's available online, but I'll provide a little pricey. Professor Mendez is a global leader in intellectual property law and is the co-director of the Jean Monet Center of Excellence for European Intellectual Property and Information Rights. She has a world-class profile, particularly in the area of digital technologies and copyright. Nadoonsha has been called to the bar and is a member of Middle Temple Inn. Now, typically a simple seminar or simple seminar speakers focus on usually one intellectual property regime, or in some cases, only one or two decisions. Tonight, however, is an exception to that rule. Professor Mendez led a multi-year EU Commission project titled the intellectual property implications of the development of industrial 3D printing. And this included the analysis of patent law, copyright law, design law, trade secrets law, and trademark law. This project followed on the back of multiple articles and an UK IPO commission project on the same topic. Now, clearly we don't have time to hear all the details of these commission project tonight. That the whole report is available online and I thoroughly recommend that people read the whole thing. Well, perhaps not the whole thing. But we do have time for the highlights tonight and I think we're in for a real treat. Just before I hand the floor over to Professor Mendez, I should also mention that if you have any questions, please pop them into the Q&A box on Zoom there or chat to me directly. I'll run through all the questions at the end and if there's too many, I'll try and group them together and make some sense of it. But the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Sean. Thank you for a very kind introduction. I'm really happy to be here. Really happy to be one of the speakers of this series and thank you for inviting me. I was mentioning earlier that I have a bit of an unstable internet connection but I think I'm going to brave it and keep my video on. However, if for example the reception gets bad then if maybe John you can let me know then I will switch off my camera as we go along. Moving on to the talk, as John mentioned, I'm going to be speaking today about a project I did for the European Commission. And what I want to do in the next few minutes is first of all to give some context and also overview of the project. So talk a little bit about how this project came about and then also talk about the objectives of this project and the team and the methods that we use. For the majority of the talk, I will be focusing on the study and I will look at some of the selected legal issues, industrial opinions, and then our findings, conclusions and recommendations. Finally, I just want to say a few words about the work that's been done by the European Commission since the project's been published or since the report has been published. And there was a report that came out on the 6th of November so I just want to touch base on that in conclusion. So in that context to this project, back in 2017, the European Commission produced this report and it was called the Balance Intellectual Property Enforcement System and it looked at various different aspects of IP and in that report there was also mentioned of 3D printing. So a little bit after that, the following year, in June 2018, there was a report by the Committee on Legal Affairs and that report really focused on 3D printing and what it means for IP and what it also means for civil liability. In this context, the European Commission was kind of started the work and was very interested to understand whether anything should be done in this field and in July 2018, this report was adopted by the European Parliament. So this is a little bit of background in the context of this particular project, but it's worth mentioning, as Joan also mentioned that in the context of the UK, there has been a number of funded projects on 3D printing and its implications for intellectual property. And for example, there was the, actually the UK was one of the first countries or one of the first UK IPOs to have commissioned a project in this area and that was back in 2013 and was a project which I led for two years and completed in 2015. There was another project which was really focusing on IP which was funded by the HRC and that was between 2015 and 2017 and then the UK IPO once again, taking forward the recommendations of the project that we did commissioned a second project on 3D printing and that was carried out by Dr. Angela Daly and that was completed last year. So there has been quite a bit of work in this area and of course, since I remember the first article I wrote back in like 2012, I remember at that time there was really nothing on it, but in the last eight years there's been an abundance of literature in this area. But of course, time and time again, we have come back to this issue of, you know, what are the challenges and what, you know, whether we need to clarify the IP framework in the context of 3D printing. So this project is at the back, as I said, of the reports of the commission and this project started in 2018, so now like two years and a bit. There was an expert round table in November 2018 where having done or having set out the structure of our report and our project, we then invited industry experts as well as legal experts, and we put our thoughts to them and then received feedback. So this is our final workshop in October 2019, and then we ended the project and published the report this year in April 2020. So what was the brief of this project. It was written like as the title goes to explore this intellectual property implications written to the development of industrial 3D printing. 3D printing has been in the news a lot and there has been much focus on consumer 3D printing but this project was really focusing on industrial 3D printing. And as I mentioned before, it was all about trying to understand the gaps and clarify the IP framework, looking at opportunities but also challenges and any obstacles. And what was really important in this project was to do so from the perspective of seven selected sectors and the commission was very keen for us to look at the aerospace, automatic health, consumer goods, construction, energy and industrial and tooling sectors. So this project really focused on those and when we looked when we spoke with industry stakeholders, they were from these sectors. The reason why I have put some of them in bold is maybe just to highlight to you as well that sectors like aerospace and automotive. They were one of the first sectors and especially aerospace to have been involved in the uptake and adoption of 3D printing all those years ago. So first was aerospace, then it was automotive. In the recent past and even in the recent years and even in the past years as well. And so in this order, health has also been one of those areas where 3D printing has been used quite a lot, whether it be in implants, whether it be in the dentistry or organ and tissue structures as well. So for example, earlier this year, we were looking at more from the perspective of bio printing and we wrote this article with Professor and our Santosh Rushman from Saint Louis University in USA. And it was all about looking at the health sector. And in more recent times of course there has been this focus on consumer goods, construction, energy and industrial and tooling. I just want to say a few words also about the team that took part in this project as a quite a few of us as you can see from the slide. We led this project, and I led the project but along with me there were a team of legal experts, the IP team, then there was a team of industry, and they came from Nottingham and also from a company called added scientific, which is very focused on 3D printing. And then we had a team that was focused on the empirical side and on the policy side that really focused on looking like with the interviews and all that we had to do in that context. So there was quite a few of us in this team, as you can see from the slide. So in terms of the work packages, that's kind of how we went about it. So we start with the literature review. Then we went on to mapping the value chain of all the sectors. Then we synthesized that to come up with some kind of basis for going to speak with the industries. And then we spoke with various industries which I'll highlight in a minute, and also explored. We had some case studies, which we were exploring so went with that. And then, as I mentioned earlier, we had the expert meeting the final workshop, and then finally, our report. So here's the report. That's sort of just a screenshot of the report I have put in my slide how many pages. It is another reason why I say that it's because it is a large report but it's got a nice executive summary, if you would like to go and look at it as well. But also to say that while I'm presenting, as I mentioned, it is a large team and we also also, you know, we had very specific roles. So today I'm going to give an overview of this project. And if I do talk about the law, I might speak probably more closely from copyright law, but of course the report covers all aspects of IP and goes beyond that to also contracts and also like trade secrets, etc. So another study, as I mentioned, the four main IP rights, including database rights, trade secrets contracts, that's the areas we looked at. We looked at, for example, the challenges, whether the law was fit for purpose or not. And then we explore these issues from the perspective of protection exceptions infringement and licensing. So here it was really important as well to make sure that when we are doing this, that we approach it. Of course it's a it's a legal report, but really keeping our focus on 3D printing. So, as a result, what we did was that we had this model, which we use in every single aspect so whether we were looking at protection whether we looked at infringement, whichever area we looked at, we came at it from the perspective of 3D printing. So in this model what you see is the entire process from starting to design a CAD file to what you do with that. I mean you might just use it, or you might share it. You might send it off to a bureau service which is sort of like the photocopy shop, the photocopy shops of the past, like we have that we had. And then you know the actual printing for which you need materials, you need the hardware, something called STL file which I also explained, and then you were distributed and then you might license it. So that's kind of the process and that's how we approach this particular study. So for the empirical study, we had, we interviewed 41 key stakeholders, so 41 different industry stakeholders. They came from the seven sectors that I mentioned, and they came from different parts of the value chain. So what I mean by this is that, you know, we spoke to industry stakeholders from those who are designing files to those who are preparing, those who are creating material, processing, post-processing, the product, all of that. So we tried to capture the entire part of the value chain in our interviews. We interviewed very large 3D printing companies, but we also interviewed SMEs as well. We did this from the perspective of 14 EU countries, and we focused on Western EU, but also on some other parts of the EU as well. So we tried to kind of cover a wide possible, breadth as possible. So that's just a very quick overview of the project and the team and what we were aiming to do. So for the next part of this talk, I want to focus on some of the legal issues, the industry opinions, and our findings, conclusions and recommendations. So I'm going to start with the first one, which is about designing CAD file, and I should say I'm going to spend just a bit of time on this part, because it was the area that generated the most amount of, I would say, discussion, and also the most amount of questions from the industry. So, and it has been, I mean, even when I was doing the UKIPO project or the HRC project, this is an area that came up with questions time and time again. So I will spend a little bit of time and then move on to the rest as well. If you've been to my talks previously, you may have seen this slide, I use this quite a lot. This is from 2013. And it's, you probably can guess it is from 2013 because it talks about an iPod. I'm not sure that we use iPods as much anymore, but the core is all about that a 3D printer without an attached computer and a good design file is as useless as an iPod without music. In other words, it is the hardware is important, but the software is equally or more important. And I've outlined the words good design file, and that's what I want to start with. So you may have all seen CAD files, but if you haven't, then that's kind of like what it looks like a CAD file. It's a simple example of it. And on the right hand side of my screen you will see that like kind of a construction graph. So that's the return iteration of the 3D model. And then here you see the actual 3D model. So I put the return iteration in a red square because that's quite important. I'll come back to that in a minute. And I kind of mentioned the European Commission's report that they did the Committee of Legal Affairs back in 2018. And they made some very specific or they identify specific issues and of course one of them was about the CAD file. You know, because it can be distributed electronically as we have seen with other forms of IP protected works like music or films, and so too with 3D printing too. And it's just like a new type of, I don't particularly like the word, I guess file sharing, but it is a new type of way of sharing those files. And we have kind of online platforms that are just dedicated to 3D printing files. So, and that's what the Commission was highlighting there. That care should be taken in this area and also because of the fact that it's easier to copy because it exists electronically before it takes physical form. And also that maybe a distinction should be made between private use and printing for commercial use. And two more kind of points they made, which I thought was, it was interesting. So one is that legal experts of the view that 3D printing has not really fundamentally altered IP rights, but the thing is that it has raised various questions as to whether such a work with us in those files are actually a work and whether they should be protected as such. And also, this kind of a new era of DIY or make it yourself where only that you might get the software for download and the specifications for printing the product and in that kind of situations, you know, what are the implications. So we put these questions to our industry stakeholders of 41 industry stakeholders that we interviewed and we asked them in their opinion and in their experience in industry but they think there's a lack of clarity in the law regarding the protection of computer aided design files. And as you can see from the slide, there's a it's answered very strongly in the affirmative that they feel that there is a lack of clarity, which of course we knew from our previous, you know, like the kind of the literature that has been already written on this topic but what we were really interested to understand is from an industrial perspective. Why do they think there's a lack of clarity. So here are some of the abuse. One is that they really had lots of questions about the difference between the legal and the difference from a legal perspective between a CAD file and a 3D model, whether they should be protected separately. And also whether the information that is stored and the geometry of the object, you know, is that just a mathematical expression or is it software core because according to which either there is IP or there's no IP. And of course there's the law of the time, the, this discussion came up about CAD files and STF files so CAD file is the industry standard, and it is the kind of the standard that's used by most designers around the world. And it is the standard it's used to kind of design like what I showed you earlier. So when you're ready to print it, you have to turn it to something like a different file format and what that is known as is the STL and STL is a very popular file format to turn that into. And I'll show you an illustration of that. One point to note here is that a designer's IP is normally found in a CAD file, that's where the source code lies, prior to it being transferred into an STL format. So let me tell you what I mean by this. So on this slide here what you see is a two separate or the two different types of files. On the left you see the STL file, and it's kind of like an interface as well. What you see is like what a customer might see. It's a pendant, but you can also change the color of the pendant or the design. So there's scope for customization here, which is almost going one step further than just printing it. And then what you see on the right hand side and what I put in a red box there is the CAD file and that on the, or what you can see there is the return iteration. And that's where the IP actually lies and then the design and obviously separate diagrams or like two separate products. But for confidential reasons iteration of the polar pendant, but just to maybe just give a rough idea. That's kind of like the very first part of the, the construction graph, as I call it. And if I was to kind of put that into our kind of, you know, that makes I would say that's probably like the, the first page of a book. I mean this construction graph is so long because of the fact that this designer is not only designing the polar pendant, but is also designing in a way that it gives customers the opportunity to mass customize it. So this is almost like a mini program within the larger program, which is you know quite interesting. So all of that is captured in the CAD file, before it is transferred into the STL format. So these are areas where they had various questions for us and said that's not these are there as well if there's no lack or there is a lack of perspective very quickly to have a look. So we are looking at the legal status of the CAD file versus the 3D model, the 3D model of course from a let's say from a corporate perspective it can be an artistic work. Well, I find it really interesting and you know I've thought many, I've spent many days and weeks and months probably and years thinking about this and the CAD file to me is almost like, I see it as like the, like Microsoft Word or like pages or PowerPoint or it is like the basis for us to create something. The actual model for me is what we write, it's like our journal article, what we type into Word, what we type into the PowerPoint. So in a way that I feel like I can see that there is a distinction. And also it is important to point out that the 3D model cannot actually exist without the CAD file, they are interlinked, but yet at the same time, a 3D electronic or like a E model can be realized as a physical product and can exist independently of a CAD file. So that is quite interesting and once it is printed out, then it's like a separate product in itself and there are plenty of cases that looks at similar scenarios in the case of like loom instructions and fabrics or in the case of knitting instructions and garments and in a more recent CJEU case of CoFML, which was about artworks. So, but in some it's pointing towards protection and others is saying there's no protection so also from a jurisprudential point of view as well, there is that kind of question mark still hanging over it like what is the legal status of this and whether you know it can be whether both can be created or sorry whether both can be protected or not. So our conclusions based on the findings that we did the findings of the empirical research and also that of our legal. And as I said, like in the report you have an entire section where all of the IP rights are considered in this context. You know just given a very brief overview. We concluded, especially from the perspective of patterns corporate and design laws that there is a lack of clarity when it comes to CAD files, not so much from trademarks but from patterns corporate and design. And of course we found this lack of clarity coming out in the industry stakeholders as well. So that's why we recommend to the commission. We recommended that they should clarify the elements, what elements of a CAD file can constitute subject matter or protection and for which IPRs. So that separate assessment, a legal assessment should be carried out of the CAD file and the 3D model it encompasses to understand this like this dichotomy I just spoke about. And then I've just given some aspects as I said from corporate, which I will touch on from time and from time to time. Under corporate law, whether to recommend clarifying the software embedded in the CAD file can be considered a computer program in accordance with the EU corporate law. I just want to clarify that this is the part where I was talking about where you have the basis so you have the source code in the actual program that's been created for designers to use and to create 3D models. But where a programmer or a designer is creating, let's say the polar pendant with options for, like say for example, Mark's customization and I showed you that slide where it's a you know, let's say authors personal touch, their intellectual creation. And at the moment, like there's this question mark, but is it not just instructions? Is it not just mathematical equations? So that, you know, with that kind of, I guess lack of strategy, so hence the reason we made this recommendation. And also whether we also recommended that to consider whether the 3D model should be seen. Therefore, it's a distinct work separate from the resulting physical product and we felt that the law. Okay, so just a few words also about scanning just going on from the CAD files. And again, I'm coming back to that document from the commission back in 2018, where they again identified the impact of scanning on various different laws. And first of all, actually, they mentioned privacy and image rights. But as we go on, there is this recognition from an IP perspective that not, of course, all 3D objects are automatically assumed to be illegal. However, counterfeit items can be produced easily if of course scanning is available, you know, quite widely. Here's an example, actually, this is not from the commission, but I just want to use this project to highlight something when it comes to scanning. And we even in this project we did look at jewelry as well. So jewelry was one of the aspects from the perspective of consumer goods that we looked at. And here you can see piece of jewelry and what you see like sort of like an iron is in fact a scanner. And then you see a different piece of jewelry is on the second picture, but we were going to scan the first item. And when we scanned it, it looked like that like a black blob. And when I say we wasn't me as such but there was a colleague was very experienced in scanning. But after he spent a lot of time scanning he realized that actually there was a moving part in that particular piece of jewelry. And therefore they had to place a little blue piece of felt underneath and start the process all over again. And this took a huge amount of time. And you know, again, if I was to come at it from, you know, think of it from a legal perspective like the angle, the lighting, you know, all of that had to be considered and some choices had to be made. So if you are, for example, you know, if you think of it like from a corporate perspective, you are making some creative choices in this context. And then ultimately, cleaned and what you know, many hours later, and a day later, that was the ultimate product. So, and I just got this very short kind of. It's not a video but just to show that you know this was like the what he was doing for the whole whole day. And then obviously had to go back and start again to get the product, you know, scanned effectively. So I'll put that it's not really relevant to the project but I just thought, you know, I was canon 3d printed and so you know, apart from what I'm talking about as well, obviously. And that's of course not in relation to myself but when we talk of image rights, all of that that does come into play. So, when we think of scanning. What we did find out was that 3d scanning has an impact on almost all industries, but it's in aerospace automotive consumer health, all of that. Of course, what we did also find was that in the health sector, it is used really a lot and the in the recent past, this has grown significantly. And this was very interesting for us to see. When we were looking also at consumer we also noticed that it is also used by museums, a lot for preservation and also for the reproduction of their collections for exhibition so this again was a very interesting finding for us. Again, we go back to our interview, our interviewees and we asked them about what they think about this area and from their own experience so you know from the various sectors, particularly and there's a like clearly the health sector was an important one but again consumer goods as well as of including the others to aerospace as I said they're all involved in this area a lot. And what you see again is a very strong affirmative that there is a lack of clarity with it in the ownership of what we call the scanned design data. So we call it design data, but that is the the from the scanning process like the resulting design data from the scanning process. So here are a couple of quotes as well from the industry reviews, basically pointing to the fact that scanning does present completely different set of challenges. And therefore if the law should apply, then it should be fashioned in such a way they can accommodate the peculiarity of design data. So pointing out the fact that scanning is not straightforward as I already hope illustrated. It's not immediate. It needs sophisticated equipment and also it needs some form of know how as well. But there were some doubts that were raised as well as you saw in the answer I mean, most people agree there were a few who did not and those who did not question whether scanning will be master's to fabricate copies of objects or maybe this is just not, you know, maybe it's not worthwhile We had to take the obvious the majority was very much of the opposite view. And some like a few people talked about maybe it's the enforcement that was an issue, as opposed to a need for a law change. So from a legal perspective, you know, this one was quite interesting to us in some ways that there was such confusion amongst our industry stakeholders, because when we look at it from a legal perspective, especially when it comes to data, and from an IP perspective. You know, it is a very clear. It's, it's, it's, it's very clear. But, I mean, there are two points that I want to raise one is that a CAD file, which is created through scanning a physical product. So, you know, it could be new work it could be a derivative work but of course if it is for example, representing the authors personality the expression that free and creative choices that I spoke about and also very much, you know, we were very struck as well at the time that the corporate directive of course came into force article 14 which talks very much about out of corporate works again, kind of saying that, you know, if it's out of term then obviously there's no corporate clearly, or there's no IP rights but there after I mean, but unless the material resulting from that active reproduction is original in the sense that it is the authors on intellectual creation. But in terms of our conclusions. Like I said the law is clear in this area, even though there's confusion amongst the industry stakeholders, because you know the law IP law does not protect data per se. But of course there is important distinguish between the 3d model and the and the CAD file which could potentially be considered a computer program. And so in this, in this context of the design data we do not recommend change the law because there's no practical need to do that I mean there's no practical need to do so at the moment. And of course there are other areas of law such as trade secrets and contracts, which are of course better equipped to provide adequate protection. So I think, even though there was a confusion from a legal perspective we felt there was very clear what the law, you know, that I mean there's no confusion from a legal perspective. Few words about printing don't want to go into too much in relation to that because this is something that's been developed over a number of years and it's probably the most, the area that has the most clarity. When we asked our industry stakeholders about the hardware in the 3d printing industry, the protection of hardware again they had a very strong opinion on the affirmative where they felt that the law was clear in this area. So I won't say anything more about that because it's something that already from a, I think a hardware perspective a lot of work has already gone into this. So it was more the software side of things where a lot of issues, I would say, came up. And then just to say a few words about the last bit of the 3d printing process. I'm just checking whether I'm on time, hopefully say okay. So distribution of the printed good and the licensing of it. So, going back again to start with to the, what the issues that were raised by the Commission, before the event on with this project. So I'm really focused on traceability of the design files once something's been produced and and on this slide what you see is like, I guess different types or like different scenarios where traceability could be very useful. And then there's a scenario where there's been a damage course as a result of from a 3d printed objects. And then, you know, where for example, that's more product liability issue is not really you have, I guess, relevant to us today. And there's the issue of like encryption and the protection of files to prevent those files from being reproduced, and then there's also security issue as well and in the past you remember that some years ago there was all these things about 3d printed weapons and you know it was at that time as well that this report came out. So, when it comes to licensing and traceability. What we found out was that licensing from others was not really a common strategy amongst small companies, although few of the interest were openly this idea of getting licensed to reinforce their kind of their core technology. But we did also see that cross licensing did emerge and that was something we saw that some other larger companies were more involved in. Maybe in this case actually set the patent infringement law source that was quite interesting. And as part of like traceability licensing, you know, once, once something has been 3d printed. We kind of asked ourselves as well whether blockchain could be whether it could act as a part solution. You know blockchain could be an effective solution for the traceability of files and already there's various efforts with the employer watermarks. And again so in that sense you know blockchain could be like the next step. But of course, you know, blockchain in itself I mean, of course encryption is another matter and maybe, you know, encryption can be used for the controlling of objects by blockchain itself cannot control the type of printable objects. And these are the recommendations which were made by the European Parliament in June 2018. So before we started. Some of the recommendations revolved around a global database of printable objects. I mean, I guess you know we did consider this but for us and I'll talk a little bit about our project and how we kind of approached it. But this is almost we felt like along the lines of maybe like an iTunes kind of system but you know who monitors that who decides what goes into the database. So there are various questions there. Another one was introducing a legal limit on the number of private copies and again, you know who kind of monitors that who sets the limit. I think there are various questions that were the third one is about imposing attacks on 3d printing to compensate IPR holders and of course that we do see already when it comes to other forms of media so that's clearly a possibility. But again, we went to in our project that's we put this question again to our industry stakeholders asking whether it is important with a traceability is important from both an IP and we also put in product liability as well. And you can see at the top of the slide, they talk about traceability becoming really important and then saying that, you know, it is something that I don't expect you to read the whole thing on this slide here but maybe what you can all do is that there's a strong take up of like a strong consideration of from industries that traceability is very, very important. I would say of all the questions and I mean there are some questions I couldn't put on putting this presentation of all the questions we asked in movies but I would say of all of them I would say this one I think has the greatest number of agreement where they strongly agree or agree. They all feel that this was definitely the way forward. But of course they had some other points as well apart from agreeing. So one was that they did point to the fact that there are some CAD file formats where it is not possible to place a watermark, or even auto mechanic changes because the source code is encrypted so that was like an issue. But majority and like you saw that like over 30 of them 34 believe that what is required is a clear and also inexpensive kind of system that works in practice. And these they felt that is something that will become relevant and will become more and will be adopted in time to come. And it will be used more and more, and it will be used in the coming years. And I would go out to the fact that, you know, it is something that was there looking forward to something like blockchain maybe acting as a part solution that is important for industry to address some of the issues in relation to quality management, simplicity, reliability, production or material reliability. And so those are areas where they felt that, you know, more work needed to be done so it just cannot be like this one technological solution and that's it. And finally just to kind of remind presentation to the last question that we put to the last question I'm sharing with you today. So one of the biggest models in the 3d print in the 3d printing sector kind of breaks the barriers for startups and SMEs. And again, we have a very strong agreement from our 41 industries stakeholders answering that in the affirmative. We identified three areas where this could really is happening at the moment so one is of course commercialization of cat files through intermediaries. Then we have the democratization of access to design and manufacture, and also innovation by experimenting with current technology. And a few, like just a few of them that give the opposing view that feeling they feel that commercializing via like sorry commercializing by intermediaries are usually not sufficiently protected by current IP laws and therefore they feel that it could lead to a higher risk of infringement. So, but generally the, for example, the industry stakeholders we spoke to really felt that, you know, that was definitely, it really does break down the barriers for them. And, and, you know, it is an area and also, you know, when we think of intermediaries, I guess, our mind might go to, like the consumer again but actually quite often, like even companies that when the consumer market are now almost suppliers for designers, and these are for professionals in this way. So they really were very much in favor of this. So yeah, so our final conclusion, the recommendations here was that, you know, licensing work cat files definitely has the potential to create new business models and to reduce the barriers to entry for startups and SMEs. Traceability we recognize that is still underdeveloped in the end field but we felt but we recommend that technological solutions such as blockchain be explored and be considered for the traceability of this file so that you know it can, it can provide better protection in a different in a kind of symbiotic way along with the IP framework. This is if you look at the report you can have a quick snapshot view of these are our final conclusions. And, as I started the presentation, we did come at it from, or, you know, the report is obviously looking at, you know, going through the different aspects of IP from protection infringement exceptions and licensing. And over through we used our 3D printing process model. So as we came from that perspective and I've shared with you some of those findings and conclusions, and these are the final recommendations to the commission from cat files to design data materials and hardware from exceptions on the context of infringement and also licensing and traceability. The last slide before I end is what I mentioned also at the beginning that on the 6th of November there was a commission staff working document evaluation document that was published and this is very much on the design protection. But in this document, again, another long document, things about 181 page or something like that. There's, there is a lot of reference to the 3D printing report that we completed in April 2020. And there's a lot of discussion about their next steps. And basically, there's an event in two weeks time where this is going to be taken forward. So I'm, you know, I'm speaking that as well and so that's kind of the next step to what the commission is going to be doing and what the parliament is going to be doing to taking the work that was done and completing April forward. So that's a very quick tour of this project and very quick overview. I'll stop sharing my slides and I'm very happy to take questions. Thank you. Right. Thank you to an issue that was a wonderful talk. I think one of the problems we have in this new digital world just putting 3D printing to the side for the moment is as I'm sure most of us know there's a lack of applause and there's a lack of change of feeling in the room when a speaker finishes a talk, especially after speaking for so long, you're wondering what's going on. So let me just say that was wonderful and it's, it's must be so challenging to summarize a complex project and a complex topic like you've done. So thank you very much and I'm sure I speak on behalf of all the attendees. So while we wait for some people to type their questions into the Q&A, I guess I might take the chairs prerogative and ask a question myself. One of the things you recommended earlier on in your talk was the idea of offering clarity on protection of cat files. I was wondering if you could say a little bit more about this. I mean, it's one of those areas where, you know, it's been debated a lot in the literature. And I remember even way back in 2012 when I started first writing about the one of the questions I had was in relation to cat files. And in some ways you might say that, you know, but isn't this already, I mean why is it an issue because, you know, the software, we have this, you know, the software directive everything is very obvious and otherwise it's such an issue in the 3D printing context. But I think that the issue is that on the one hand you have, you have the file like I was explaining like the file and then that's the basis. And it's kind of like when we, even with music when you remix, if you have just a piece of music then that's fine. You start sampling and remixing. But suddenly there are new IP issues that are thrown up. But it's only after it's only at the time of someone started remixing and sampling that those issues came up, not when music was just there. I mean that's one thing. And of course the other thing is that when it comes to cat files, so like one aspect is that what I showed about the polar pendant, which is, if for example a designer is not just creating something but is giving a consumer options for changing it, then and they are creating almost a mini computer program, like I mentioned I said that it's like the first page of a book. And I look at the cat file like the, the base is almost like Microsoft Word or like PowerPoint. And I then look at like, but no one's going to write my article. I mean, okay, that's the whole thing by AI, but I'm not going to go into that just now. But if you take AI to the equation for a moment, I still have to write my book, I still write my article, I still have to put together my PowerPoint slides. So this is kind of the similar thing where for a designer who's giving all those options and who's giving mass customization options, is it for example, a mini computer program within a larger one? You know, that's one question. And the second one is like an MP3 file, you have the music, it's embedded, it's all good. And of course, but it's all like, you know, you will listen to that and then if you were to go and perform at a concert, you have different rights too, right? You have different performance rights in the music world. So, like if you think of the cat file, you have the digital model, and then once it's printed, and it's a standalone product, then it's got all the other patterns and the trademarks and all that as well. So actually, whether it should be a distinct work, whether the model and the file, whether you know, and I think this is something that the industry stakeholders have the same question as well because quite often their customers come to them. They have like, you know, all of, for example, I was mentioning that the STL file and the cat file where, you know, all the IP is in that cat file, and they don't want to let go of it. But you know, how did they kind of protect that? Yeah, right. Sorry, keep going. I'll quickly end by saying that, you know, when, for example, quite often, the question is, but isn't it a mathematical formula? Or isn't it just like instructions? Or isn't it just data? So why should there be in protection? But then if someone is writing like an entire book and doing all that, then shouldn't they have some, and it's they're making creative choices and it's their intellectual input, etc. Then should there not be sample protection? And also for the claims in patents as well. Sorry. I'll stop now. So do you think we'll get clarity on this point without a decision or do we need to wait for a decision from leading courts in Europe or perhaps the CGAU depending on the regime? Yeah, I mean, this is where this question was even asked like I remember the IPO time as well that we should wait for a decision. That is of course one way, but then also one of the recommendations we did make was, you know, there is what we need. I think what we need is maybe a little bit more clarity from that perspective as well. But I think I'll be afraid to come. It might be that we might have to wait for CG because we haven't actually had such a decision so far. Yeah, yeah. So we've had one question come through from Kathy Liddell. It's a question about actually we've had two questions come through, but I'll deal with the first one first. The methodology that used for the industry survey. How did you choose the firms and get their involvement? So, I mean, for us it was very important for us to, at least for us, but also for the commission to ensure that we get like a very good cross section from the EU and also focus on SMEs as well as large companies so that we get as wide a perspective as possible. And of course, as part of the project team, we had Professor Phil Dickens who is one of the directors of added scientific that's one of the first 3D printing companies that, you know, like Nottingham was a very big 3D printing hub. So, in terms of, so I'm going to give the non legal answer the non methodological answer first, which is that he has a great set of contacts so that was very good for us. But apart from, so that was that was helpful, but the methodological answer is that maybe we're justifying like the companies that we go for we had to of course, you know, when we're drawing that out and of course everything had to be passed by the commission. So, it was really a focus on the kind of the cross section of jurisdictions are we are recovering enough across Western Eastern, you know, we think of the EU I mean, we're not going to do all 28 but if you did half of that, you know, are we getting a good section and obviously the large ones, as well as the smaller ones, and then also the value chain as well so that's where I mentioned, you know, like it's really important for us to speak to people who are involved in all past the value chain and not just focus only on those people who are designing a file, not only on those people who are like involved in the material side of things, but really trying to speak to that wide variety so that's how we kind of came up with our list of stakeholders and passed by the commission and then they gave us the green light and then we started interviewing. But it did take the reason why it went on for a bit longer is because the interviews of course to longer. Yeah, I engage with similar issues before. One of the, I suppose one of the hiccups that I know I've had previously with interviews is it. It's, it's wonderful to sort of get the value chain as you described it and the breadth of countries across the EU that you that you got, but one of the, I suppose disadvantages with that approach is that, as you spread out, it actually means that sometimes you might be getting a minority view because you only got a small sample of say mass producers in France or Liechtenstein or something, you're only getting one view there when others might have other views. Yeah, I mean that yes and we do highlight that so in our report in the appendix we have identified some, you know, like some of the limitations in our methodology and one is that the we might get that like as you're saying, but again, this is where we felt to mitigate that, even if it is like if you go by country then what you're saying is correct, but then if we go by, like we talk to larger and again even if it's a different country but speaking to like that same value chain put like another person but in a different country, then hopefully we are mitigating that and we are trying to get a more broader view from those different types of companies, the larger ones and the smaller ones. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah it does. Yeah, I suppose that yeah it's always a bit of a you have to weigh up because you can't one of the problems with doing interviews is that they take so long and so you can't interview hundreds of people it's just not really feasible for a project. Yeah, I mean we had like to the kind of the limit that we had was like from the commission was up to 50. I mean it was it was still so 45 and 40 and so it's all also on like you know as you know the interviews like sometimes availability and the time and all those kind of things that kind of come into play so but they were happy so we're happy. Yeah, yeah. Actually, there's another question from Cathy came in if we can return to a topic that we were just discussing before and it was the idea of clarity on protection and I suppose enforcement as well is that sometimes clarity can be optimised through a judicial decision, but in other times, we might see certainty in an industry just arise because of practice. Would you prefer to see a clarity arise in the 3d printing industry because of I suppose industry practice or do you think we should push for a legal decision here and and perhaps even have a test case in some jurisdictions taken. Yeah, well, I mean, I'm also a big proponent of like, you know, sometimes you can have a good symbiotic and I mentioned that in my talk as well. Like, you know, sometimes we see, I mean IP is needed. But so for example, materials a good example of that. Well, that's why I didn't spend so much time on materials where it actually through practice and through of course the law as well but you know over years and years and years that has been resolved and the clarity has come about as a result of the kind of practices that you're mentioning was coming out of the industry. So, and another one could be potentially could be like blockchain I mean when you also look at, I also think of larger companies that we have now, like not 3d printing. Sometimes the enforcement has come because of company, those large multinational company practices. Yeah, and the way they you know if I think of like from the music world like if you think of Spotify or Netflix and you know at some point we're most like pirating and doing all this kind of stuff and, and then this kind of new business models came in and somehow is industry and you know it kind of stayed, you know went hand in hand with the IP framework, and we found a good solution so I think that even it's really printing. You know there is a space for that. I think, you know, you can have good industry practices, coupled with IP, the IP framework and, and then accordingly, hopefully you can get like a good results. Interesting actually the the blockchain idea that you were mentioning. I must admit I've researched a little bit of blockchain but I'm not, I'm sure I'm not up to date, like some of the people are listening to us today. But one of the things that jumped out when we were talking about blockchain and traceability was a type of DRM and digital rights management. And I was wondering, you know, is, is that a new type of that. And we have to see some sort of support for blockchain in 3D printing or will blockchain by itself the current technology be enough. Yeah, really interesting question and something that we also ask as well in the in there are no at least one person in the audience I can see is a is hot on DRM. But yes, I've, you know, blockchain on its own that's why I call it a path solution. I don't know that blockchain on its own can save the world. What's it you know in this context, but I think it's one of those things again that I think you know, could probably go hand in hand with some support because I mean, I've also looked at blockchain not from 3D but printing but just generally from a from a corporate perspective. And you know there are various like claims that you know it can take away the middle man or you know it is the ultimate solution for enforcement but every time you do explore and investigate that you always come up against it can go so far. But it just, you know, I don't think it's on its own it can resolve all the intellectual property issues we have today, but it is definitely a path solution. Okay, oh, we just had another question come in and perhaps we'll make this the last one for tonight I'm sure people have food to eat and family to go and see from Alex here in the law faculty. Do you think different considerations would apply to 3D printing for artistic versus industrial pro purposes. So what was I can I can look at the key way. Do you think there'd be different intellectual property considerations for 3D printing if we would consider artistic purposes compared to industrial purposes. Yeah, that's great question again and you know that's kind of the, I guess the question that was raised in the case the CJU case of Kofa Mer, which was very much about the artistic and the industrial. And this is where again, I think I know in one of my slides I was showing that when I talked about going back to the whole issue again of CAD file. You know, this is a model that is the artistic or is it like, you know, is it industrial is it again so we go back to that same question again. And this is why in that context. And I think at the moment the issue is that we have different opinions on that. And I'm not just talking about the literature like the academic literature or the literature we have also from the decisions we have. So I think that's that is definitely one of the reasons and I think Kofa Mer is exactly that question. CJU asked him and said, no, I mean, you know, it is, if you could, for example, for there to be protection, it has to, it has to be original and it's going to have that intellectual creation, and it cannot be the industrial aspect of it, you know, cannot come into play. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's where we need the clarification. That's right. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's, in reality, it's one of those classic intellectual property type issues. And some jurisdictions even take different positions on it, especially sort of designs copyright overlap and things like that. Maybe there is to be learned from them. I think that's probably enough. Thank you so much for your time tonight. It's been a fascinating talk. And to be frank, I'm glad that you've brought me up to speed and some of the some of the latest thinking and some of the research in this area. It's something I've been interested in for a long time and I'm sure all of our attendees have been interested in it for some time too. And I'm sure we'll keep track of everything in the future. And to everyone as well for attending and thank you again for inviting me. Thank you. Okay. Good night.