 In 2014, the company faced significant criticism when it filed patent applications for designs that some claimed had been invented by members of its community and published to Thingiverse, such as the quick release extruder.Community members accused MakerBot of asserting ownership over their designs when those designs had been contributed with the understanding that they would remain open source.Then-CEO Bre Pettis released a statement dismissing these critics, citing patents that had been filed for unique inventions prior to any community-created designs, namely that the patent for the quick release extruder was originally filed in 2012 while the open source design was first published to Thingiverse in 2013.