Amazon Lands US Patent for 3D-Printing ‘Customized’ Shipping Containers

Amazon landed a U.S. patent Tuesday that describes techniques for 3D-printing “customized” shipping containers for delivering e-commerce goods to consumers. “Conventional techniques can make it difficult to optimize packaging of items for shipment, causing the merchant to pay more shipping costs than necessary,” said the patent (9,962,921), assigned to Amazon Technologies of Seattle and based on a December 2014 application. “Inefficient packaging of one or more items may lead to wasted space,” and “inadequate or inappropriate packaging may lead to items being damaged, or spoiled, while in transport,” it said. Using 3D-printing instructions generated when an item is prepared for shipping, the container can be fashioned to “include loops, hooks, mounts, or other surface textures to facilitate handling of the container” via forklifts, cranes or drones, it said. “In at least one case, the shipping container may be manufactured around the item resulting in a fully-sealed container with the item packaged inside,” it said. Information such “as whether the item is fragile or sensitive to temperature can also be captured and input” into a “data store” for ready retrieval when the item is purchased, the patent read. Giving the example of a fragile wine glass, it said the “3D shipping container engine may receive item information associated with the wine glass such as a height, a weight, a depth, a geometric shape description, and a composition material.” The container can then be 3D-printed “around the wine glass,” and shipped to the customer in the protective enclosure, it said. The company didn’t comment on commercialization plans.