From the beginning of his glassmaking career, René Lalique kept the moulds used for his creations. His successors followed his example and some one hundred thirty years later, the Lalique crystal works features more than 6,000 moulds, stored on long shelves. Made of cast iron, wood or steel, numbered and classified, they are regularly maintained. As a wise industrialist, Lalique would file patents to protect the innovations he was developing. The first is dated 16 February 1909. It deals with a glass moulding process applicable to the manufacture of flasks, carafes and all vases with an opening narrower than the inner body.