Digital IPR Protection

The watermarking technologies —an innovative means to enable the licensing of the content online

3D printing is a growing field with potential to completely change our ways of manufacture and supply chain. 3D printing refers to an additive manufacturing process in which successive layers of material are laid down under computer control to form 3- dimensional objects. It is redefining the creative industries, providing a new and novel way to create and distribute works.

The use of 3D printing is rapidly growing in a range of industries – including healthcare, education, automotive, construction and aeronautics.

With the development of 3D printing technology, the problems of intellectual property rights, criminal offences and human ethics that may arise due to it have received great attention from the national and international community.

Before the printing begins, a digital design file for a particular object is either created by a computer-aided design (“CAD”) programmed or by scanning an existing object with a 3D scanner, which turns it into a virtual model.

In this case, it is easier for the IP right holders to be infringed, especially without the permission of the IP right holders and it will produce some illegal impacts toward the IP right holders. It is very important for us to enhance IP protection for the 3D in front.

The legal risk caused by 3D printing technology involved in different legal area: Civil code, Copyright Law, Patent Law and trademark Law. For instance:

• Uses of open source software in 3D printing present potential contract and intellectual property infringement issues.
• Contract issues arise from obligations and restrictions that may be imposed by the open source software agreements.
• Intellectual property infringement contains the risk that software applications and content files may include material subject to third-party copyright rights that is copied without authorization into the software or a 3D design file.
• In addition to copyright infringement risks, third-party trademark and patent rights might also be incorporated into 3D design files and the ultimate printed object without authorization from the rights owner.

Copyright

Ownership

1. During the process of 3D printing, there will be a digital file which represent the physical object in the digital system, from the copyright perspective, the digital file is also copyrightable and there will be a separate copyright from the copyright over the physical object. Who is the owner of the different copyright during the 3D printing process? How to allocate different copyright to the right author?

Infringement

2. Should the process from physical object to digital file be considered as reproduction from copyright perspective?

3. How to assure that the person who upload the digital file to the website is the right holder of the physical object?

4. Once the digital format of physical object is established, how to prevent it cannot be reused by others?

5. Different 3D printing company has their own website or platform, meanwhile there are various types of digital file, how to guarantee that one type of digital content cannot be reused in other platform?

Privacy

6. In order to track and trace the use of digital content, digital watermarking is used in he content, however, it will bring the challenge to the users’ data protection. To what extent customers’ personal information can be used, stored and analyzed during the process?

7. How to guarantee the process of users’ personal information conform with the regulation of GDPR?

National safety

3D Printing can also be used in the weapon manufacture, therefore, how to provide guideline to avoid the risk for national safety is also significant.

As the lag, generality, ambiguity and other limitations of the law itself, the process of law cannot keep pace with the development of technology. Facing the challenges and uncertainty caused by 3D printing technology, is it reasonable to enact a new legislation?

The advanced computing technology and information technology have brought us into the Digital Era. The Digital Era is characterized by technology which increases the speed and breadth of knowledge turnover within the economy and society. Meanwhile, the Digital Era provide opportunities for companies, it also brought challenges to legal theory, like copyright protection.

In this sense, digital rights management (DRM) is designed to protect copyright over digital content. This approach includes the use of technologies that limit the copying and use of copyrighted works and proprietary software. In a way, digital rights management allows publishers or authors to control what paying users can do with their works. For companies, implementing digital rights management solutions or processes can help to prevent users from accessing or using certain assets, allowing the organization to avoid legal issues that arise from unauthorized use. Today, DRM is playing a growing role in data security.

In terms of the copyright protection, DRM could restrict or prevent users from editing, saving, sharing, printing digital content; watermark artworks and documents in order to establish ownership and identity.

Copyright industries are hoping that digital rights management (DRM) technologies will prevent infringement of commercially valuable digital content, including music and movies.

DRM is sometimes said to be a mechanism for enforcing copyrights. Moreover, even though copyright law confers on copyright owners the right to control only public performances and displays of these works, DRM systems can also be used to control private performances and displays of digital content.

DRM also brought discussion about data protection. In the emerging environment of digital information, the proper balance between DRM and user privacy is an important subject for public debate.

It should be clarified that, no matter which system is designed to provide protection for digital content.All protection should be based on the domestic legal framework.

With the rapid development of 3D printing technology, the design of 3D models has become personalized and diversified. The research on collaborative design and virtual products in the network environment makes it possible to foresee that what users may buy is no longer a physical product or part, but a 3D digital model consisting of points, lines and surfaces. Only those authorized users can copy, modify and manufacture the model. Therefore, it involves the security protection of 3D digital files as information transmission and the necessity of anti-counterfeiting the physical model. At present, the anti-counterfeiting of 3D printing models is achieved by embedding digital watermarks in triangular grid data, but this technology has the following shortcomings: (1) 3D printing model digital files are not all in triangular grid format; (2) Grid 3D digital files will lose watermark information after being printed and manufactured after embedding watermark information, so it is impossible to identify the physical model.

Key bottlenecks to be addressed.

1. Lack an integrated 3D printing authentication service platform with digital model property rights authentication, trading and storage service
2. The commercialisation of the 3D print authentication platform still need further development of additional extensions.
3. While blockchain technology is becoming increasingly mature for IP protection mechanisms, there is a need to build a cloud blockchain storage solution for 3D printed digital models encryption.

In view of the above, it is necessary to propose a new digital watermarking technology that can not only protect the 3D digital model, but also identify the printed physical model.

The project developed a digital watermarking technology that enabled the tracking and tracing of 3DP content, from its creation through to its destruction. A watermark is embedded into creative content; our technology made the technology easier to implement and difficult to remove, thus enabling new forms of 3DP works.

 To attach the technology to an existing licensing platform will allow for the use of 3DP content in new creative ways, leading to new artistic forms. For example, our technology could be attached to 3DP materials themselves, resolving an ongoing problem in ensuring the quality of materials which are used for printing. This could allow for more complex artistic works; it could even lead to organic works involving 3DP biological material. Our technology would open up new markets, even overcoming existing regulatory hurdles. This is because the technology would enable right holders to guarantee sources of materials, and can be used to check if the structure of a 3DP object has changed internally.

This project intends to use blockchain technology to build a 3D printing authentication platform and industry ecosystem with the patented 3D printing watermarking technology as the core:

• Provides a 3D printing authentication service platform to protect the IPRs of 3D printing products in ways that easy-to-use, accurate and worry-free.
• Fills the gap in the industrial market with a platform that covering multiple product authentication services based on the 3D printing authentication.
• Helps promoting the standardized development of the 3D printing industry and the process of national digital asset intellectual property protection.