Consumers are excited about 3D printing because of its emerging accessibility to printers and implications for a wide range of industries, says Maria Smith, a partner at Baker & McKenzie in Hong Kong. “The growth for 3D printing was worth US$2.5 billion in 2013, and is expected to climb up to US$3.8 billion by the end of this year and US$16.2 billion in 2018. It’s projected to grow more than fourfold in four years.”

Smith was speaking at a seminar sponsored by her firm, Attack of the 3D Clones, scheduled to coincide with the growing interest in the technology and designed to inform about the issues, legislation, challenges, opportunities and future of the subject matter.

Three-dimensional printing is not only about small gadgets nowadays; even human organs and food are being printed. Part of the rise of the technology is likely because 3D printing is efficient and cost effective: a giant 3D printer can create 10 full-sized houses in a day with minimal waste material.

Other benefits of 3D printing include rapid prototyping and manufacturing, leading to shortened supply chains, local and customized production, intensive production using machines rather than humans.

However, IP challenges could result if computer-aided design files are shared, unauthorized objects are made from the files, original objects are scanned without permission, and through customization of objects for commercial purposes, said Smith.

There is a voluntary copyright registration system in China, so for better protection, clients are always encouraged to maintain records of both 2D and 3D files of their designs, said Andrew Sim, a partner at Baker & McKenzie in Beijing.

Rights owners must also be offered some protection devices or services from 3D printing providers, create robust IP portfolios, mark products and packaging, encrypt source files, include license on not to re-engineer or use other parts, create platforms for consumer customization and use their products heavily in marketing campaigns in order to maximize the commercial potential of 3D printing, as well as to gain a better leverage if litigation arises, said Sim.

An identical or substantial similarity test will determine whether copyright infringement has taken place in China, Sim said. “3D objects rarely infringe patents, though, because patents tend to cover processes, machines, manufactures and compositions of matters.”

As the wave of 3D printing approaches, Sim and Smith say it is that likely China and Hong Kong will have to amend their patent regimes in order to expand contributory infringement clauses and limit the scope of the noncommercial exceptions. For copyright, the governments may consider expanding regimes to cover functional objects; for trademarks, the regimes could allow trade dress to be more easily considered as being inherently distinctive without requirement for secondary meaning, as well as to minimize the “use in commerce” clause and expand the scope of dilution.