Stratasys has won the first round of its US patent fight with Bambu Lab, the Shenzhen-based maker of desktop 3D printers. After a week-long trial in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, a jury awarded Stratasys about $27.6m in past damages, TCT Magazine reported on 18 September.
The defendants were Bambu Lab and affiliated companies including Shenzhen Tuozhu Technology and Shanghai Lunkuo Technology. According to Stratasys, the jury found all four patents at trial valid and infringed. They cover purge towers used when switching filament, extrusion paths that fill small voids within a layer, and two related patents on detecting force during print-bed levelling.
Bambu pushes back
Bambu Lab said it disagreed with the verdict and would seek post-trial review and appeal. A final judgment will set the formal relief, and 3D Printing Industry noted that Stratasys had not said whether it will seek an injunction against any Bambu products. Stratasys said it was focused on protecting “the intellectual property that underpins our innovation.”
A dispute fought on several fronts
Stratasys filed two suits in August 2024; the second has not yet been set for trial. Elsewhere the picture is mixed. The US Patent Trial and Appeal Board found claims of two other Stratasys patents, on heated build platforms and networked printing, unpatentable. It upheld the core purge-tower patent, though Bambu has appealed that decision to the Federal Circuit. In Europe, the Unified Patent Court’s Hague local division on 24 April rejected Stratasys’s request for provisional measures against Bambu’s H2C printer, finding at that preliminary stage that the machine fell outside the European patent; Stratasys did not appeal, and Bambu has started an invalidity action.
A $27.6m award is small for a market leader, but it signals that older patents can still tax Chinese challengers in the US.
What to watch
- Post-trial motions and the final judgment, including any request for an injunction or ongoing royalty.
- The Federal Circuit’s ruling on the purge-tower patent, which could undercut the verdict.
- Scheduling of the second Stratasys case.
