The manufacturer's CAD files are not files of an existing object. They are a set of enginering drawing to make a set of dies for a product.

Beginning to detect a pretty gross misunderstanding of what engineering CAD programs and files are, as contrasted to a handy dandy simple CAD program for making simple floor plans , schematics, etc.

Chuck Y
Boulder CO




________________________________
From: Dave Nelson <Lake_Muskoka@...>
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 8:44:03 PM
Subject: RE: [STMFC] Re: Critiquing Pre-production Models?





Dennis Storzek wrote:

You REALLY don't want to ever make your CAD files publicly
available... they are all you have that makes your product unique.
Anybody can have tooling made, on six of the seven continents.
Anybody can have parts molded. And once someone has your CAD files,
they can do it with your design. The world, even this list, is filled
with people who don't see a problem with making copies of someone's
published work; don't see a problem with using another's plastic
parts as masters for their copies; you won't have to go far to find
someone who will "borrow" your design.

The law is pretty simple: 3d cad files of pre-existing real world objects
are not protected by copyright because no creativity was used in producing
the cad files. Lots of time sure, but no creativity.

Dave Nelson







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