APPLiA supports facilitating the repair of products in order to foster a circular economy; nevertheless, we believe that the proposed decree imposes obligations that risk creating disruptive and disparate requirements within the Single Market and fail to provide tangible value for consumers or the environment. The requirement to disclose manufacturing plans or technical information for 3D-printed spare parts raises significant concerns regarding legal certainty, product safety, liability, intellectual property, and administrative burden. For these reasons, APPLiA considers that the draft decree should be withdrawn.
The draft decree imposes a binding obligation on manufacturers and importers solely in respect of products sold on the French market. This lack of harmonisation is difficult to reconcile with the principle of free movement of goods and with the objective of maintaining a level playing field for manufacturers operating across the Single Market.
For a significant share of the products concerned, 3D printing is not currently a technically viable manufacturing method. Many spare parts for home appliances must meet strict requirements for electrical, insulation, mechanical robustness, flame resistance, and, where relevant, food-contact compliance. Current 3D printing processes and materials do not reliably meet these non-negotiable safety and compliance standards for the majority of such parts.
We acknowledge that certain 3D-printing processes are increasingly capable of producing technical or food-contact parts in specific cases. However, even where a part could technically be printed, consumers themselves are not in a position to manufacture a compliant part, and attempting to do so could compromise both product safety and the safety of the end user.
Article D. 111-4-8 of the draft decree provides that the obligation to supply a 3D-printing manufacturing plan does not apply where a 3D-printed spare part cannot be used in a manner that ensures product safety. We welcome the inclusion of this exemption in principle. However, the same article makes the exemption conditional on the manufacturer or importer indicating, in writing and within fifteen working days of receiving a request, the technical characteristics of the spare part and, where appropriate, the safety standards that justify why the part cannot be 3D-printed. This justification requirement, to be met on a case-by-case basis for each request, creates a significant administrative burden for manufacturers and risks turning a safety safeguard into an additional compliance obligation in its own right. In addition, we would recommend that manufacturers be exempted from providing a manufacturing plan, or the proposed mandatory technical information, where the use of a 3D-printed part would pose a risk to the device's reliability and robustness more broadly, and not only where a specific safety standard is engaged.
Manufacturers cannot control the production process or verify that a printed part complies with applicable safety and regulatory requirements. The draft decree does not specify who is to be held liable in the event of an incident involving a 3D-printed spare part, whether the manufacturer or importer that supplied the manufacturing plan or technical information, the professional seller, refurbisher or repairer that produced the part, or another party. In the absence of such clarification, manufacturers and importers remain exposed to legal uncertainty despite having no control over the third party's production process, the materials actually used, or the conformity of the part ultimately produced.
A manufacturer that discloses a CAD file or technical information cannot exercise sufficient control over how a third party subsequently produces the spare part. A CAD file, whatever its design quality, is not enough to guarantee an exact replica of the original part: it does not allow the manufacturer to control the material actually used, the 3D-printing process itself (which varies from one printer to another), or the precise shape and dimensions of the finished part. As a result, a 3D-printed spare part produced by a third party can never be assumed by the manufacturer, or verified by market surveillance authorities, to comply with the applicable requirements for the product concerned.
As a result of the fact that 3D CAD-data cannot control the material composition of a third-party spare part, we foresee food-contact materials’ (FCMs) conformity issues under Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004. Indeed, specific requirements for materials are set under such Framework Regulation, to ensure safety and inertness for all FCMs. On the other hand, we also foresee safety-issues for spare-parts that have to fulfill specific safety requirements, such as plastic housing-parts of printed circuit boards (PCBs) which need to restrain potential fire initiation, combustion and propagation processes, or plastic enclosures which shall have appropriate mechanical resistance to avoid access to live and moving parts.
Article L.111-4 states that the obligation applies where an essential spare part is 'no longer available on the market', and is triggered by the manufacturer's or importer's possession of the relevant file or information, implying that there is no obligation to recreate historical CAD data that does not exist. Beyond this, however, the draft decree does not specify how long the obligation lasts once triggered.
As drafted, the text could be read as requiring manufacturers or importers to remain able to provide the technical files needed to develop manufacturing plans for an indefinite period. We recommend that the obligation does not extend beyond the applicable spare-parts availability period for the product concerned, and does not imply an indefinite obligation to retain CAD files or equivalent technical data.
The draft decree sets a 15-day deadline for providing spare-part drawings where they already exist, and a 20-day deadline for providing the technical specifications needed to develop such drawings where they do not. These deadlines do not reflect the reality that manufacturers cannot anticipate in advance which of their many spare parts may become subject to a request, nor pre-prepare 3D-printing plans for all of them.
We would like to highlight that the lack of control by manufacturers making available CAD-files over third-party production processes of spare parts, and the consequences this is likely to yield, will neither tangibly benefit the environment, nor the safety of the end-user. For this reason, and for the reasons set out above, in terms of risks to the integrity of the Single Market, the technical unsuitability of 3D printing for the vast majority of spare parts, the unresolved liability gap, and the disproportionate administrative burden the measure imposes, we urge the French Government to withdraw the draft decree.
We remain available to further discuss these issues with the French Ministry and the European Commission. APPLiA is committed to provide the Commission with our experience and expertise.
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