Does LEGO actually destroy their molds or not?

[anothergol]

A lot o knowledge is in those moulds and in wrong hands it could mean a lot of damage to the factory.

Really?

How many companies are producing Lego-like parts now?

IMHO Lego's main value today is its name & presence. Part quality, well, let's remember the minifig seat went from this

to this

And that same sprue (or whatever it really is) mark is to be seen on the -visible- side of pretty much every part nowadays.

[dr_spock]

There could be trade secrets in the molds. Injection molding plastic is an art as much as a science. How the channels are laid out, the size of the channels, etc. can play a key role in the quality of the output, proper cooling to avoid molding stress in the plastic which can lead to cracks later on.

[human panda]

Back in the day they would dump the molds into the fountains of Lego plants in the Billund area to stop them from getting in the wrong hands.

I Know from my experience with IP material that we would do one of the following to destroy anything so that it didn't to get into a competitors hands

• Destroy the piece by milling or turning into nothing but chips or swarf of steel so that dimensional tolerances could not be measured
  
• Get apprentices to learn how to weld by destroying the machined faces so if the piece was picked up by others there was too much work in it to reclaim the item
  
• Destroy the piece in a 600 ton press
  
• And finally secure scrapping of the worn out and prototype pieces
  

the best bet is to get in contact with a lego tool marker https://www.linkedin.com/title/toolmaker-at-lego-group , I've always wanted a set of 3001 mold die tooling

I do have a article from bohler uddeholm (tooling steel supplier to lego) about there relationship with lego that maybe on interest, I will try to dig it up and post it