E3D announced a licensing program for their high-flow extrusion technology: FlowCore.
This is an interesting development from the UK-based company, which is well-known for its expertise in developing high-end hot ends, nozzles, and extruders for 3D printers. Their components are frequently used by a number of 3D printer manufacturers in their own products.
3D printer components are a highly competitive business, with new innovations appearing regularly, and similar products soon appearing afterwards. E3D seems to be taking a step to better control its intellectual property with the introduction of FlowCore.
It’s a program where products that officially license and use the E3D technology carry a FlowCore mark. Basically, it leverages the company’s patent portfolio to ensure participants pay for the right to use E3D tech.
And what about that patent portfolio? E3D lists the following patents on the FlowCore page:
- CN115697674B (China)
- CN117320867A (China)
- EP4132765B1 (Europe)
- EP4585391A2 (Europe)
- EP4341070A1 (Europe)
- GB2618699B (United Kingdom)
- US12496778B2 (United States)
- US2024253305A1 (United States)
These in total cover the company’s high-flow technology, as well as their upcoming FUGE system. E3D explains:
“High-flow printing has moved from a specialist feature to something users expect as standard. We would rather see the technology adopted widely and on a licensed footing than not, and we look forward to enabling better print quality and faster, smoother printing across the market.”
E3D also reports that the first marked product for FlowCore turns out to be the Phaetus Liber high-flow hot end used in the Snapmaker U1, which we reported on the other week. Interestingly, Snapmaker did not mention FlowCore or E3D in their announcement.
But that’s how things go for E3D: they quietly make 3D printers work.
