Token Daily - Medical company threatens to sue volunteers that 3D-printed valves for life-saving coronavirus treatments

A medical device manufacturer has threatened to sue a group of volunteers in Italy that 3D printed a valve used for life-saving coronavirus treatments. The 3D printed valves have saved 10 patients so far.

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imminentmisanthrope 6 months ago

Yeah, I posted that this was false on this sub on another post. They've obviously reposted it again.

curtman99 6 months ago

Does anyone actually read the article? Legal action was not threatened. The mfg. simply declined to release the designs.

MartianEarthling 6 months ago

Fuck your business. I hope this issue is brought to every major media outlet( although highly improbable as most are probably in bed with toxic businesses like these)

NotAnotha1 6 months ago

i work in medical manufacturing. while they can make it for cheap they need significant regulatory approval to sell to medical companies and testing and screening prior to bringing to market. Yes the company suing is scummy but honestly I don't want a faulty valve that didn't go through trials or validation supporting breathing for my elderly parents

walking_the_burbs 6 months ago

Even with RnD and associated costs to bring this to market....$11K is fucking ridiculous.

spolio 6 months ago

how else can those multi millionaire CEOs get a 4th or 5th yacht..

sneakywombat87 6 months ago

“Update, March 18th 5:30PM ET: A group of Italian volunteers distributed 3D-printed versions of a vital medical device — but it doesn’t appear that the original manufacturer threatened a legal crackdown. As we reported earlier,” - title needs updating

labdog 6 months ago

1.5k people haven't read the article? The title is a lie.

rehabdoll 6 months ago

"A group of Italian volunteers distributed 3D-printed versions of a vital medical device — but it doesn’t appear that the original manufacturer threatened a legal crackdown. "

iTiniTi 6 months ago

HE BETTER make a public statement he's not suicidal. I have a feeling that would get him before covid.

frustr8tion 6 months ago

Read the article. It was bullshit.

hubofwreck 6 months ago

This is the kind of shit wr as a society need to stand up against when all this shit is over. The reason we are in this situation is because people put bullshit money over people.

LX-357 6 months ago

It's false. Apparently the only interaction they had with the company was they could not release the design files so the pair had to reverse engineer it. No law suit or threats followed.

sammygun69 6 months ago

Patents are silly law. Open source everything!

shwift 6 months ago

Dudes did anyone read the fucking article? It literally says the opposite of what the title says. They were not threatened...

comicsans_theman 6 months ago

This is where We the People need to act as their security and defense. We must unite. United we stand. We defend them, they produce the valves, doctors use the valves and It will save many peoples life’s.

phantomrsxaccord202 6 months ago

hmmm, if they are suing, then the 3d printed valve is working, if it is working everyone should do it they can't sue everyone

lives over money

Jasper9080 6 months ago

Re-read the updated article...

mrrix32 DTNS Patron 6 months ago

Article had been updated, seems there was a misunderstanding

we have categorically not threatened to sue anyone involved.

aussiepowerranger 6 months ago

At some point we should rise up and just start murdering the lawyers.

0dnar 6 months ago

It has to be close to guillotine time?

HIVnotAdeathSentence 6 months ago

This is in Italy, a country with universal healthcare, and it seems they're still being ripped off, giving the the company a pass.

CptBeetle 6 months ago

Does anyone here actually read?

Andehh1 6 months ago

So many up votes, so few people who read the fucking article.

3 lines in.... Come in people!! Read before you blindly follow.

Brittlehorn 6 months ago

Reading the article helps, the title is misleading.

rAAZk Centrista safado , Liberal , se curte? 6 months ago

puts , ai é foda mesmo

mas se eu fosse o governo desse pais , eu na canetada mesmo , tiraria a patente dessa empresa ai e tornaria publica , tipo oq o LULA fez com os remédios para aids.. pq porra . 11.000 (dolares eu acho) ai é sacanagem

por isso q o anarcocapitalismo nunca funcionaria , pq nego é muito egoista

1984stardusta 6 months ago

Não terá como garantir o egoísmo sem costas quentes com burocratas. A tecnologia tornará impossível segurar esta troca de informações, distribuição de produtos e serviços.

jagger27 - @jagger27 6 months ago

$11,000 for a plastic valve. Unreal. No wonder hospitals are always stretched to the limit when they're being gouged like this.

Think of it this way, a hospital could buy 10 valves or hire a physician for a year. Are these valves typically re-used? Are they going through them faster because they don't want to risk infecting other people?

ardy42 - @ardy42 6 months ago

> A medical device manufacturer has threatened to sue a group of volunteers in Italy that 3D printed a valve used for life-saving coronavirus treatments. The valve typically costs about $11,000 from the medical device manufacturer, but the volunteers were able to print replicas for about $1 (via Techdirt).

What's the name of the manufacturer?

jacquesm - @jacquesm 6 months ago

Let them threaten. This is newsworthy when they actually sue. It would also require them to go on the record, with their names and the names of their executives and lawyers on full display. My money would be on that not happening.

waiseristy - @waiseristy 6 months ago

Where did this company "threaten" to sue? All I can find is the following source

"Now, despite the country battling an unprecedented health crisis, there is potential for a legal battle with local media reporting that the manufacturers of the valves are refusing to share their blue print for further production and could potentially sue for copyright breaches."

So they may have the option to sue?

hirundo - @hirundo 6 months ago

> we are not going to spread the drawing.

This part seems less than optimally ethical. If it's a choice between helping other hospitals to save lives and to avoid additional legal liability, this seems like a good hill to go bankrupt on.

But...if someone slipped the file to me I wouldn't publish it either. So I can't fault them for being as faulty as me.

dbcurtis - @dbcurtis 6 months ago

At least in the US, I believe so long as you do not sell or transfer items, you can make them for your own use without licensing the patent. To win a law suit, the company would have to "show harm". They can't. They lost exactly zero sales.

kichik - @kichik 6 months ago

They should hire them instead. Maybe together they can cut production costs so this life saving equipment doesn't have to be sold for $11,000.

frollo - @frollo 6 months ago

I'd like to see them try. To sell this kind of critical equipment to Italian hospitals you have to guarantee there will be no shortages even (especially) in critical conditions. They failed to uphold their part of the bargain with the country and at this moment both the government and the people are very short on patience. Probably, if they even try to sue the volunteers they are going to lose all their contracts with Italian hospitals in a matter of days.

landryraccoon - @landryraccoon 6 months ago

This article feels like low quality clickbait to me. The company isn’t even named, and there’s no source given for the claim that a lawsuit was threatened.

bensonn - @bensonn 6 months ago

This linked article actually names "the manufacturer" and the lawyers. Name and shame! https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200316/14584244111/softb...

virtualritz - @virtualritz 6 months ago

Printcrime[1,2] by Doctorov becoming reality in one of the most nasty ways imaginable.

[1] https://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocke....

[2] E-book download: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19000

Maarten88 - @Maarten88 6 months ago

People are quibbling about money while millions of lives are at stake. We need tens of thousands of these medical devices and we need them fast. Like in the coming weeks.

If companies who suddenly find themselves in a strategic position don't get what they need to do, then the Government needs to take control using emergency powers, and use any available production capacity in the country to ramp up production, fast.

We'll also need to do many other things. We should adopt a wartime mentality, focus on solving the problems at hand, and stop wasting time. At least in Italy they get this now.

sliken - @sliken 6 months ago

The world needs IP rules like the FCC (USA) has for Amateur Radio.

The rules are basically if lives are in danger, anything goes.

zozbot234 - @zozbot234 6 months ago

This is adding nothing new over the previous BusinessInsider piece. It's just reporting (again) that this company asserted patent rights after the hospital and the 3D-printing firm requested the design in .STL format due to being unable to secure supplies in an unprecedented emergency. Which is what we knew already.

dredmorbius - @dredmorbius 6 months ago

Circumstances such as this call for mandatory licensing or pooling of patents.

The system itself is broken and should be abolished, as has been long and well argued.

hatenberg - @hatenberg 6 months ago

This crisis is really showing many ridiculous and completely unnecessary conditions in our systems and these will break down.

cs702 - @cs702 6 months ago

At first glance, this reads like the sort of horrible thing only a fictional megalomaniac villain would do, say, in a Bond movie.

yellowapple - @yellowapple 6 months ago

Right on the heels of SoftBank-owned Labrador Diagnostics LLC suing over COVID tests: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22598988

Which company is suing over the 3D-printed valves? We need to name and shame. If we're unwilling to call out monopolists putting profits over even human life, then we, too, are complicit.

On another note, I'm of the increasingly-strong belief that patent suits should be deemed automatically dismissed if the "infringement" is a response to either an inability or unwillingness of the patent holder to actually use that patent productively (i.e. produce something using that patent). In this case, if the original manufacturer is out of stock, 3D printing replacements should be fair game. Likewise, if we don't have enough testing kits, making and distributing more should be fair game.

oldandtired - @oldandtired 6 months ago

Having seen the prices charged for drugs and how they then calculate future prices (after the R&D costs have been recovered), I have a very sceptical view of any comments that say we need to consider R&D and regulatory cost recovery before complaining about the prices being charged for anything in the medical technology field. Having also discussed what was seen by someone I know who left the corrupt world of advertising to go to the medical technology world, I also consider anybody saying the same about recovery of R&D and regulatory costs to either being a liar or deluded. The gentleman in question went back to the advertising world because they were innocent children compared to the corruption and price gouging that went on inside the medical technology industries.

There is a captive market here and the seller can sell at any price they want and make any markup they want because they can. There are some very honourable people and companies who do not price gouge in the field. But it seems that these are a very small minority.

Now mind you, this kind of price gouging occurs anywhere there is a captive market. But some industries are more susceptible to it than others.

FpUser - @FpUser 6 months ago

For what it worth the company might loose rights for their patent if it can be proven that it does not perform due diligence (chasing violators being one example).

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