Update 10/11/20: I did figure out how to use classes to automatically scale this to n lights! Updated post is here.

This post originally appeared on the Engelberg Center blog.

Sarah Goehrke’s recent article on the University of Tennessee’s new ‘patent pending’ 3D printed face shield made me wonder - “what is going on here?” There are a huge number of open source 3D printed face shields out there, and the value of a patent on an ‘innovation’ in the field would probably be pretty small. Why bother paying to get a patent in this case?

update 6/23/20: a version of this post is now also up on Make

This post originally appeared on the Engelberg Center blog.