Additive manufacturing (AM), or 3D printing, provides cost-effective solutions to vexing industrial problems. The series of tests and evaluations against requirements can often be thought of as experiments. Those experiments could be considered R&D from the point of view of tax law. Wait. What? How did taxes come up here? Let’s back up.

Additive manufacturing can have profound effect throughout the product-development life cycle; AM helps engineers and designers visualize concepts and preliminary designs, refine final design, and produce final pieces. Through quick and cheap cycles of trial and error, manufacturers can tackle a number of situations, including printing a widget that solves a problem at hand, producing small batches of widgets, producing tools, showing an artifact to a potential customer or investor to demonstrate a product concept, and supporting the engineering of product usability or manufacture. Experimentation is needed to refine the design toward functional requirements, to converge on an optimal balance of materials or form. That experimentation can take time and be costly. For complicated projects many iterations, or cycles of printing, are sometimes necessary.

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