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@gattsuru
I was curious about a gun related question, and you seem super knowledgeable.
Could the patent office be a distributor of 3d printed gun files?
Guns are patentable.
Patents are made publicly available.
Patent files can include PDFs. PDFs can contain enough information that a 3d printing file format is extractable.
States would have to sue the patent office to stop them from distributing the stuff.
Probably doesn't work.
The trivial issues are patent law ones, where I'll admit I'm not anywhere near an expert. The input patent files themselves could theoretically embed additional data (either as PDF or technically DOCX) at a format level, but the publicly published data is reformatted by the patent office, and even author and creation date metadata is scrubbed. There's explicit rules on this:
(Large embedded files or embedded javascript might also just be culled at input for security purposes, though I don't know if it happens there or during review after you paid cash.)
You could (and, indeed, would need) to provide precise drawings, but that's going to require manual conversion, and most 3d print designs are pretty advanced CAD work to re-implement. Figures and drawings require at least one number, but they can be rejected for being too 'dense' with information, too.
Technically speaking you can attach 'program code', but it only gets published if it's less than 300 lines, with each line under 72 characters. Which is not a lot of STL or GCODE, and you'd need either a very lax or very sympathetic patent examiner.
... patent examiners, lawyers, yada, don't have to be US Persons for EAR purposes. Giving them access to the files as part of the submission process is technically an EAR violation: do not pass go, lose a hundred thousand dollars, do not own a bank account. Unlikely, but a threat to keep in mind.
Even if you do get the file in a patent, it's not clear that actually helps much. Against an unsympathetic administration, there's actually a process for blocking the publication of patents. It's not meant to be used for stuff like this, but it's basically unreviewable for anything but monetary damages, and even that's iffy.
If you get lucky enough to avoid everything else, above, it's not clear it helps you a lot. Traditionally, published information is excluded from the EAR under 15 CFR 734.7, but that's the place that specifically excludes 3d printed guns (at least under current BIS interpretation, including STLs and design information). 15 CFR 734.10 decontrols patented technology, but that only covers the concept, not the file data, and that's assuming BIS doesn't get creative again and argue 734.7(c) is expansive. So the patent office could theoretically publish a file, but it would still be illegal for anyone to repost it.
You could maybe describe the gcode in structured natural language, such that a 'translator' could convert it back?
ie: "we claim an arrangements of parts as follows: 'bolt': a rectangular prism 8cm*2cm*2cm with 3mm longitudinal grooves at the midpoint" etc etc etc
pretty boring patent app, but I think such a description would contravene various ghost gun regulations, and seems to fall much more obviously under free speech than a gcode file?
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