Desktop Metal granted Separable Support Patents for Metal 3D printing technology
Desktop Metal has been granted seminal patents for their Separable Supports technology by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the first office-friendly metal 3D printing system Studio System™ for rapid prototyping, and their Production System™ that is the only 3D printing system for mass production of high-resolution parts.
The Desktop Metal Studio System which started shipping in December 2017 was granted U.S. Patent No. 9,815,118, while the Production System which will start shipping in the latter half 2018 was granted U.S. Patent No. 9,833,839. Besides the additions of the newly granted rights to their existing portfolio, Desktop Metal currently holds over a hundred more pending patent applications covering more than two hundred inventions for this technology.
With their new metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) approach, Desktop Metal has made it possible for multiple materials to be used during printing. Their Bound Metal Deposition technology print support structures that do not bond to parts, and consolidate with the part during sintering. This allows support structures to be removed easily by hand and results in high dimensional accuracy. The technology benefits covered by the patents are expected to result in a substantial increase in adoption of metal AM by companies in years to come.
