A Texas jury awarded Stratasys $27.6 million in September 2026 after finding that Bambu Lab’s X1, P1 and A1 printer series infringed its patents. Bambu Lab disputed the verdict and said it intended to pursue post-trial review and an appeal.
The decision covered technology used for prime towers and bed leveling, according to Tom’s Hardware’s September report. No injunction had been imposed on the named machines at the time of that report, leaving the damages award as the immediate consequence for Bambu Lab.
Prime towers and force sensing were central to the dispute
The technologies at issue sit close to the everyday operation of consumer filament printers. Prime towers are used during multicolor or multi-material printing to manage filament transitions, while bed probing helps establish the relationship between the nozzle and build surface.
Tom’s Hardware identified Stratasys’s US9421713 patent as covering the single-nozzle purging implementation used by Bambu Lab’s first-generation machines. It also identified US9168698, concerning force detection, as targeting particular strain-gauge and force-sensor implementations in those printers.
Reporting differed on the purge-tower patent’s reach. In a June 2026 account of Bambu Lab’s unsuccessful challenge, Fabbaloo described the patent as concerning multiple print heads or deposition lines and argued that single-printhead filament-swapping machines were outside its scope. Tom’s Hardware’s September account instead connected that patent to the infringement finding against Bambu Lab’s single-nozzle machines. Those accounts do not offer a consistent explanation of how the claims applied.
Bambu Lab’s response focused on the legal process ahead. In its statement to Tom’s Hardware, the company said it respected the judicial process but disagreed with the verdict and intended to use its rights to seek review and appeal.
Heated-bed and networking claims had different outcomes
The award was one part of a broader dispute. Stratasys filed two civil lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in 2024, alleging infringement of ten U.S. patents.
Bambu Lab also secured favorable outcomes. Tom’s Hardware reported that it successfully invalidated US9592660, which concerned heated build surfaces and flexible spring steel plates. Bambu Lab’s argument was that the claimed invention combined designs already disclosed in prior art, rather than constituting a single new invention.
The company also successfully defended its use of networked, cloud-connected printing with remote camera monitoring against claims involving US8562324.
These separate outcomes left the litigation with a mixed record: a substantial damages award for Stratasys alongside successful defenses by Bambu Lab on other technologies.
Europe’s injunction decision followed a separate path
The European proceedings had already produced a different result. In April 2026, the Unified Patent Court’s The Hague Local Division dismissed Stratasys’s application for a preliminary injunction against Bambu Lab.
Tom’s Hardware reported that the court rejected Stratasys’s attempts to broaden its claims and that Stratasys did not appeal. The September U.S. verdict concerned U.S. patents and machines sold in the United States, while the European application involved related European rights.
Four more patents remained unresolved in Texas
The printers named in the September verdict belonged to Bambu Lab’s first generation. The X1 had launched in May 2022 and was retired earlier in 2026. At the time of the report, the A1 and A1 Mini remained in the active lineup, while the P1S had been nominally succeeded by the P2S in October 2025 without being officially retired.
Four additional patents still awaited judgment in Texas in September. They covered material RFID tags, remote networking, LiDAR scanning and automatic printer detection. The LiDAR issue had a particularly narrow hardware connection within Bambu Lab’s lineup: Tom’s Hardware reported that the technology had only been used on the retired X1 Carbon.
