*Well, if music and movies insisted on their legal morasses, I don't see why the makers of plastic toys ought to abstain. Why, just look at Oracle suing Google over Android, an innovation that doesn't even make either combatant any money! They're both computer companies, but Oracle will put a spoke through the wheels just for the sheer legal joy of it.
*If you're a geek running a wargame-toy outfit, what are you supposed to do about the threat posed by fabs? Should you sit by passively while pirates exploit your labor for a nickel's worth of ABS plastic? Warhammer geek-lords probably own fabs themselves, but if your lawyers can postpose the technically inevitable for a fee of $X and that postponement offers you $3X in your current revenue-stream, why not fire up the legal system? The courts are just sitting there protecting the interests of the wealthy, anyhow; it's not like anyone expects justice out of them.
*Since we've already seen this story two, three, four or five times, this will be an interesting morass; since, in principle, it's exactly the same as the other ones, anything new about this morass will have something to do with the innate qualities of molten plastic.
https://www.wired.com/design/2012/05/3-d-printing-patent-law/
(((Since the stockbrokers are here, bring on the lawyers.)))
(((It's all part of the great technocultural sine-wave of scientists-> engineers -> accountants -> lawyers -> politicians -> museum curators. If you could just hook that last part directly to that first part, spimes would magically appear!)))
