3D printing – a new disruption to law?

In matters of technology law and policy, especially for emerging technologies such as 3D printing, law and policymakers would do well to monitor the state of the technology and market developments as well as the more theoretical literature from law and other disciplines about conceptual obstacles that the affordances of technologies pose for existing legal and policy regimes. The example of 3D printing so far fits squarely into this description, as a potentially highly disruptive technology for many areas of law, but whose progress in practice is deviating from some of these predictions. Empirical monitoring of 3D printing’s development will assist academics, lawyers, law-makers and others in determining the extent to which any “disruption” needs managed through reform.