Toy Cars to Teslas, Die-Casting is Growing Up

by: David Nickelson, Director of Research

In one of the more unique patent applications to hit the news recently, Tesla has filed an application to produce vehicle frames using a die-cast machine. That's right, the same technology behind the Hot Wheels we all loved as a kid is potentially coming to the world's most innovative automaker. US publication 2019/0217380 A1 describes multiple translatable die portions which form the mold cavity used to form a unibody frame.

The publication also has a corresponding WIPO publication, WO 2019/143496 A1, for which a search report has already been performed by the international search authority. This provides us with an opportunity to test our Limestone platform as the search opinion for that WIPO publication cited two 'X' type references and one 'A' type reference.

Using only the text of the US publication as an input, Limestone identified a group of 73 individual patent families for further investigation. In those 73, one of the 'X' type and the 'A' type reference were both located. Furthermore, the second 'X' type reference was listed on the face of the 'A' reference.

Forward and backward citation searching is a customary part of our research process here at Techson. With this information we can say with confidence that our Limestone enhanced research services would have independently identified in a very short amount of time these same references that likely took an international search authority researcher a day or more to find.

It's results like this that have continued to thrill us with our Limestone performance and have fueled the interest in learning more about it from members of the patent community. If you'd like to schedule a demo or get some more information on how we use Limestone just let us know and we'd be happy to show you around!

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