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13 November 2015PatentsStuart Recher

From robotic arms to prescription pills: 3D printing reaches new heights

The year 2015 will go down in history as the time when 3D printing got real. The base technology was pioneered in 1983 and pundits had speculated for years about its prospects in everything from medicine to consumer goods. But in 2015, Iron Man reached out and grabbed us with a 3D-printed prosthetic hand and catapulted the technology into the mainstream.

The moment was captured forever in the image of Robert Downey Jr, the actor who plays title character Tony Stark in the “Iron Man”superhero films, presenting a robotic, prosthetic arm to a seven-year-old boy who was born with a partially developed right arm. His new arm, designed to look like Iron Man’s bionic appendage, can be controlled via a technology called electromyography (EMG), which reads the electrical signal from the brain and transmits it to the arm, producing a signal that triggers the opening and closing of the hand. Best of all, it was created with just $350 worth of materials using 3D printing technology. Comparable prosthetic limbs constructed using traditional production techniques typically cost around $40,000.

Videos of the seven-year-old’s Iron Man arm quickly went viral, along with news of the price tag for creating such a life-changing technology, unleashing a flurry of mainstream news about the prospect of 3D printing. Shortly after, the French cosmetics brand L’Oréal announced plans to team up with a bio-engineering start-up to 3D print human skin for use in product tests. By the summer of 2015, with 3D printing euphoria now in full swing, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced its first approval of a 3D-printed prescription pill for consumer use. Because 3D printers allow precise delivery of active ingredients, each dose can be individually measured and printed to create a tailored drug experience for patients.

With these three big leaps forward, 3D printing has stepped out of the realm of prototyping and conjecture to become very real, commercially viable technology. Which companies are best poised to capitalise on the trend and what technologies are they currently working on? To find out, we looked at the history of 3D printing, mined the Thomson Reuters Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI) to find out which companies have been most active in 3D printing over the past five years, and examined some of the noteworthy technologies currently making their way to market.

What exactly is 3D printing?

In 1983, Charles Hull developed a technology for printing physical three-dimensional objects from digital data such as computer-aided design (CAD) files and used the term ‘stereolithography’ (SLA) for the first time in his patent US4575330A, published in March 1986. This was the start of the 3D printing revolution. Hull founded 3D Systems, still a major company operating in this field.

The process of 3D printing is sometimes referred to as ‘additive manufacturing’ (as opposed to ‘subtractive manufacturing’, which involves the removal of material by cutting, drilling, etc) and can be divided into three main technologies:

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