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4. Important RP technology improvementsIt’s not always easy to tell an improvement from a fundamental invention. For example, it can be argued that selective laser melting is an improvement on selective laser sintering because it uses the same basic machine architecture as the earlier technology. However, it can also be argued that technology that results in a fully-dense part with good tolerances and metallurgical characteristics, and which requires significant departure from the original technology to produce these results is a fundamental invention. In these selections, we’ve listed the parent of the architecture as a fundamental invention, and subsequent variants as improvements.There have been many hundreds of improvements over the years; after all there are now thousands of patents and applications in the field. But a few stand out because they greatly change the effectiveness of the equipment or result in much better output. There are probably a some important patents missing from this listing, but these are certainly significant ones.
Use the Prev | Next links provided on each page to proceed sequentially through the entire patent list, although not precisely in the order the entries appear in the table. Links provided in the "Technology Area" column will take you to pages within the WWGRP site that either briefly explain the method, or to directory listings or archived materials where more information can be found. You can also use the site search function and main index to uncover additional information.
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