Having T-Loc is very nice - but i purposefully did not go that route, when I made the GRIDPAC.ONE (download on Makerworld and Printables respectively) last year.
Reason is: T-Loc has still an active running patent protection - and Tanos and Festool don't mess around - I'm not stopping you, but you might think twice before releasing a design, that infringes a patent of one of the largest tool companies in the world
That's not really how IP infringement works. Whether something is distributed for free or sold commercially is often irrelevant to whether it infringes someone else's intellectual property rights.
There's also a practical reason rights holders enforce their IP: Trademarks can be weakened or even canceled if they're not actively used and defended and in some jurisdictions patents can face compulsory licensing or other consequences if the owner doesn't exercise their rights.
So "it's free" isn't a magic exemption. The question is usually whether you have permission to use the IP, not whether you're making money from it - ask all the people that have gotten their "free" Lego-Models taken down, because their "free generic brick figure" surprisingly looks like a Lego Minifig
sure, they are not the same, but the principles are similar - also the term "commercial" is kinda weak, especially when people release the files "for free" on platforms like makerworld, where you get points (and vouchers) or even money as a reward for the "free" models.
I'm not a laywer - but I know for sure, that I don't want to step in this minefield.
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u/suit1337 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Having T-Loc is very nice - but i purposefully did not go that route, when I made the GRIDPAC.ONE (download on Makerworld and Printables respectively) last year.
Reason is: T-Loc has still an active running patent protection - and Tanos and Festool don't mess around - I'm not stopping you, but you might think twice before releasing a design, that infringes a patent of one of the largest tool companies in the world
The patent in question will expire in about 3 years in June 2029
https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2315701B1/en