Value Delivered
GreyB identified a 102/Category X prior art that challenged the validity of a claim for a fuel-injection-based piston profile. The analysis showed that the claimed innovation was not an inventive step. Instead, it was an inherent result of the piston’s geometry, anticipated and enabled by a Soviet-era patent filed decades ago.
Problem Solved
The client faced a patent dispute concerning piston crown geometry used in direct-injection engines. The research aimed to identify prior art for a piston design supporting both early and late fuel injection strategies.
However, most historical references did not explicitly disclose injection timing. References described combustion effects indirectly through geometry or flow patterns. A detailed review of global patents and technical papers revealed multiple designs with comparable fuel distribution behavior, but the injection phase was not explicitly stated.
Solutions Offered
The team shifted focus from keywords to conceptual behavior and expanded the search to Soviet-era archives. Through form-to-function inference, a piston geometry was identified that mirrored the required fuel injection characteristics. This enabled the team to expose prior art that had been hidden in plain sight, thereby challenging the novelty of the contested claim.
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