The Technology-Intellectual Property Laws Dialectic: Forever Tumultuous?

This paper attempts to look at the problems in the legal regulation of new technology of 3D printing. Copyright, patent and trade mark laws seek to protect creators, inventors and commercial endeavours from infringement. 3D printing offers a glimpse of hope towards solving many existential problems like food scarcity, housing shortage, climate change, drug development to name a few. There are calls from intellectual property rights holders to rein in this technology using intellectual property laws. The Paper tries to look at the possible impact of an expansive regulation of nascent technologies like 3D printing using intellectual property laws.