Additive Manufacturing

Manufacturers are beginning to integrate various AI and machine learning-based algorithms into their additive manufacturing process in order to exploit the full potential of the technology. Applications of AI and machine learning can be found in prefabrication design, quality assurance & defect detection, material usage control, and predictive maintenance. The trained model that grows from the machine learning process becomes the intellectual property of the manufacturer and must be protected from inadvertent modifications or even intentional attacks. For example, there could be counterfeiters trying to build similar systems by abusing the property of the original maker or there might even be outright saboteurs who want to manipulate what the system can do in practice.

The IP comes in multiple forms: It is the data used originally to train the model, the training setup itself, and the eventual trained model. At each step in this process, intellectual property needs to be protected against theft and piracy, but still be available for legitimate agents to use, process, and reprocess. The manufacturer needs to consider mechanisms to protect the IP generated throughout the process. Security technology can be employed to encrypt and sign the data to protect the IP from unauthorized access, copying, or espionage.

If you have further interest in protecting additive manufacturing data, please contact us. Send us an email to info@software-licensing.com or submit the form below.