https://eureka.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/timer-based-automatic-lubrication-controller-system-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-10-27 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Industrial Automation & Control

Timer Based Automatic Lubrication Controller System Patents

310 patent families and 550 records cover timer-based lubrication controllers, with no single filer ahead of the rest.

550
Published Records
310
Simple Patent Families
1%
Families Naming the Largest Filer
13%
In Force at Cut-off

550 published records collapse into 310 simple (DOCDB) families; the difference is the same invention filed in more than one country. TOKICO LTD is named on 4 of the 310 patent families in scope. One patent family can name several filers, so these figures are not slices of a divided whole and do not add up. In force = 71 of 550 records still granted and maintained at the data cut-off; the rest are pending, withdrawn, refused or lapsed.

  • No single filer leads this set. Three filers, Tokico, General Motors and Stewart Warner, are tied at the top with 4 simple patent families each.
  • The field is spread thin across 86 listed filers. 78 of them hold 2 or fewer simple patent families each, out of 310 families in scope.
  • Lubrication systems carry the largest share of the technology split. F16N (lubrication systems) appears on 31.3% of the 310 simple patent families in scope.
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Published byPatsnap Research··6 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview

What this dataset covers

This landscape is built from a search for timer-controlled lubrication systems, records matching lubrication, timer and controller/control terms together. It returns 550 published records, which de-duplicate to 310 simple patent families once filings for the same invention across multiple countries are combined. The search string carries no date limit, so the set spans whatever years the matching records happen to fall in; the filing-trend chart below shows only a recent window of that full range.

At retrieval, 71 of the 550 records (13%) were granted and still in force. The rest are pending, withdrawn, refused, lapsed or not determinable, and that breakdown is not available in finer detail here.

Records vs. families in scope
  1. TOKICO LTD4
  2. GENERAL MOTORS LLC4
  3. STEWART WARNER CORP4
  4. MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORP3
  5. INT ENGINE INTPROP CO LLC3
  6. HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL INC3
  7. GEO W KING3
  8. CARRIER CORP3
  9. YAMAHA MARINE KK2
  10. CATERPILLAR INC2

Counted over all 550 published records, including filings from before 2007; the filing-trend chart below covers only the 232 records from 2007 onward, so the two charts are not the same set of documents. Ordered by volume only, not by importance or claim strength. Counted in simple (DOCDB) patent families, so one invention filed in several countries counts once. Names come from Patsnap's standardised assignee field as recorded on each document; subsidiaries and group companies are not merged. The icon before each name is read from the name itself (words such as University, Institute or Ltd); the data carries no organisation-type field, so treat it as a reading aid rather than a classification. Filings held by named individuals rather than organisations are removed where they can be identified (14 here); that identification is not exhaustive, so an individually held filing can still appear below. Either way those filings stay inside the totals above. This table shows the top 30 of the 86 filers returned for this search; the data endpoint returns at most 100 entities, so even that 86 is not the complete set of filers. A single family can name more than one filer, so these counts overlap and do not add up to the total.

Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from one Patsnap search for Timer Based Automatic Lubrication Controller System Patent Landscape, covering all matching records regardless of filing date (the search string sets no date limit), retrieved 2026-10-27. Counts cover published records only and move as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The Numbers

Filing activity and technology split

Two views of the same 310-family pool: how filings have published over time, and which IPC subclasses they fall into.

Filing trend (published records, by earliest filing year) (232 of 550 published records)

Published records peaked so far in 2010 at 30. Years from 2022 onward are still filling in as later filings publish, so the most recent part of the chart understates eventual counts; this is a publication-lag effect, not a drop in filing.

Filing trend (published records, by earliest filing year) (232 of 550 published records)08152330920072009302011201320152017201920212023202522022 onwards are shaded as still filling in: a filing is only visible once it publishes, up to 30 months after filing.

Counted in published records by earliest filing year, not de-duplicated into families. A filing is counted in the year it was filed, but it only becomes visible after it publishes: roughly 18 months for most routes, and up to 30 months where a PCT application enters national phase. 2022 onwards are therefore still filling in and are shaded; no growth figure on this page uses them. Because this series counts documents rather than inventions, a rise can mean more inventions or the same inventions filed in more countries; this dataset cannot separate the two. This chart covers 2007-2026 (232 records); the 550 total quoted above includes earlier filings outside the window.

Technology composition (share of 310 simple patent families)

F16N (lubrication systems) is named on 97 of the 310 simple patent families (31.3%), the highest share of any subclass in this set. Families can carry more than one IPC subclass, so the shares shown across all subclasses add up to more than 100%.

Technology composition (share of 310 simple patent families)F16N · Lubrication systems9731.3%F01M · Engine lubrication3310.6%B23Q · Machine tool fittings216.8%F04B · Positive-displacement pumps185.8%F16H · Gearing & transmissions175.5%F25B · Refrigeration & heat pumps165.2%F02B · Internal-combustion engines154.8%B65G · Conveying & material handling134.2%Other26384.8%

Shares are the percentage of the 310 patent families in scope. One patent family can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.

Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from one Patsnap search for Timer Based Automatic Lubrication Controller System Patent Landscape, covering all matching records regardless of filing date (the search string sets no date limit), retrieved 2026-10-27. Counts cover published records only and move as new filings publish.

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Record In Focus

One record from the result set

As returned by the search (default order, not a ranking)
US4787479A1988-11-29

Control system for a central lubrication system for vehicle

LINCOLN GMBH

A control system for a central lubrication system with an electrically operated lubrication pump for vehicles without their own power source, such as trailers or carriers for utility vehicles. It includes an electrical time-controlling device that activates the lubrication pump as a function of the operating time of the vehicle. Power to the timer and the pump motor is drawn from the feed lines for the brake light. The time-controlling device has a sensor that detects motion of the vehicle or its parts and generates a signal for a second timer during that motion; the second timer adds the durations of the signals sent from the sensor.US4787479A, filed by Lincoln GmbH, published 1988-11-29. Shown because it is the first record the search returns under the database's default order, not because it is the most cited or the broadest.

View full record

Selected as the first record the search returns under the database default order, then shown in full. It is not ranked by citations, claim breadth or commercial importance, and it is not a judgement about which filing in this space matters most.

Source: Patsnap Eureka. The first record the search returned, shown in full. Derived from one Patsnap search for Timer Based Automatic Lubrication Controller System Patent Landscape, covering all matching records regardless of filing date (the search string sets no date limit), retrieved 2026-10-27. Counts cover published records only and move as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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Patterns In The Data

What the counts show

Three figures worth sitting with before reading the filer table.

Filer spread
78 of 86
filers hold ≤2 families each

Long tail across the listed filers

Of the 86 organisations returned by this search, 78 hold 2 or fewer simple patent families each. The remaining rows, including the three tied at the top with 4 families each, account for the rest of the 310-family total.

Counted in simple patent families; names are not rolled up to corporate group.
Top count
4 families
tied at the top

Three filers tied at 4 families each

Tokico Ltd, General Motors LLC and Stewart Warner Corp each hold 4 of the 310 simple patent families, the highest count in this set, with no row ahead of the other two.

Family counts do not indicate claim scope or portfolio value.
Technology
31.3%
of 310 families

F16N carries the largest technology share

F16N (lubrication systems) is named on 97 of the 310 simple patent families. Because a family can carry more than one IPC subclass, this share is not exclusive of the others shown on the chart.

Subclass shares sum to more than 100% by design.
Legal status
13%
of 550 records

71 records are granted and in force

At retrieval, 71 of the 550 published records (13%) were granted and still in force. The remaining 87% covers pending, withdrawn, refused, lapsed and not-determinable statuses together, without a further breakdown available here.

In-force status changes continuously and is not a measure of quality.
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Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to timer based automatic lubrication controller system patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.

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Source: Patsnap Eureka. Derived observations on the same dataset. Derived from one Patsnap search for Timer Based Automatic Lubrication Controller System Patent Landscape, covering all matching records regardless of filing date (the search string sets no date limit), retrieved 2026-10-27. Counts cover published records only and move as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Where To Go From Here

Next steps for a deeper read

The figures above describe counts and shares. Reading what any specific filing actually covers takes the claim set itself.

Pull the granted claims, not the abstract

A family count or an abstract summary cannot establish what a patent blocks or permits. For any filing that matters to a design decision, read the granted claims and prosecution history directly.

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Track the filers tied at the top

Tokico, General Motors and Stewart Warner each hold 4 of the 310 families here. Watching how those rows change over time is more informative than a single snapshot.

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Check the IPC classes beyond F16N

The chart covers 100 subclasses in total; only the largest ones are discussed in this summary. Reviewing the fuller IPC breakdown directly may surface classes relevant to a specific design.

Explore the full classification chart →
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Suggested next steps. No new data: every figure named here is one of those above. Derived from one Patsnap search for Timer Based Automatic Lubrication Controller System Patent Landscape, covering all matching records regardless of filing date (the search string sets no date limit), retrieved 2026-10-27. Counts cover published records only and move as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ

Common questions about this dataset

Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from one Patsnap search for Timer Based Automatic Lubrication Controller System Patent Landscape, covering all matching records regardless of filing date (the search string sets no date limit), retrieved 2026-10-27. Counts cover published records only and move as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP

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How this page was built, and what the numbers do and do not mean

Search. Every figure on this page comes from one Patsnap search, run once and not edited afterwards. This is the exact search string:

TAC:(lubrication AND timer AND (controller OR control))

Reading the field codes: TAC searches the title, abstract and claims of each record, not the full description. The search string sets no date limit, so the scope is every matching record in the database regardless of when it was filed. It is not restricted to recent years. How this string was built matters for how far the counts can be pushed. It was generated in batch from a topic list rather than hand-crafted for this page, and the result set is not manually screened. A keyword search over title, abstract and claims both over-captures (unrelated filings that happen to use the same words) and under-captures (the same invention written in different words). This page cannot measure either effect, so read every figure here as what this particular string returned, not as what exists in the field. No subclass carries much of this set: the most common one is on 31.3% of the patent families and the set spans 100 subclasses in all. That can mean the technology genuinely sits across several areas, or that the search string is also matching adjacent work that happens to use the same words. This page cannot separate the two, and the result set is not screened by hand.

What is being counted. Two different units appear on this page and they are not interchangeable. The filer list and the technology split are counted in simple (DOCDB) patent families: one invention counts once however many countries it was filed in. The total, the jurisdiction split and the filing-year chart are counted in published records: the same invention counts once per publication. For this search that is 550 records and 310 families. Record counts reward filing in many jurisdictions; family counts do not. Shares are only ever taken against a denominator in the same unit, and each one names it.

Who the filers are. Names come from Patsnap's standardised assignee field, as recorded on the documents themselves. They are not rolled up to corporate group: a parent and its subsidiaries appear as separate entries, and a portfolio acquired from another company stays under the name on the document unless the assignment is reflected there. This list is meant to carry organisations, not people. Filings held by a named individual are identified by matching the assignee against the inventors on the same search, and, for names written in Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters, by the name carrying no organisational suffix; those are removed from the list (14 of them here). Neither test is exhaustive: the inventor list it matches against is itself capped, and a personal name written in Latin script with no organisational wording in it cannot be told apart from a short company name by rule. So an individually held filing can still appear in the list. Those filings stay inside every total and share on this page either way, so the listed entries can add up to less than the total. A record shown in full further down still names its assignee exactly as the patent office records it, including where that is a person: that name is how the record is identified and checked. What is left out of the ranking is people as ranked entries, not people as cited sources. The table shows the top 30 of the 86 filers returned, ordered by count alone; the data endpoint returns at most 100 entities, so even that 86 is not every filer. One patent family can name several filers and each is counted separately, so these rows are not slices of a divided whole: adding them together over-counts, and this page deliberately publishes no combined "top five" share for that reason. See every filer, individuals included

Dates. The year chart counts by earliest filing year, not publication year. A filing only becomes visible once it publishes: roughly 18 months for most routes, and up to 30 months where a PCT application enters national phase. Measured across these pages, the year four back from today still holds only about 89% of its eventual count. 2022 onwards are therefore shaded on the chart as still filling in. The data behind this page was retrieved on 2026-10-27.

Legal status. "In force" counts documents whose legal status at retrieval was granted and maintained (71 of 550). Everything else is pending, withdrawn, refused, lapsed or not determinable, and those states are not broken out here because the underlying codes do not separate them cleanly. Legal status changes continuously and is reported per document, not per family. Get the status breakdown in Eureka

Classification. The technology split uses IPC subclasses (four characters, for example H01M). A single record usually carries several, so the shares add up to more than 100% and a record can appear in more than one bar. Subclass is a coarse grouping; it describes the field a record was classified into, not what the claims cover. Break the classes down to subgroup level

Who wrote the words. The tables, charts, counts, shares and patent numbers on this page are produced directly from the search result by a program; none of them are written or estimated by a language model. The surrounding prose, headings, FAQ answers and the answers in the question panel are drafted by a language model that is given those same figures and is not permitted to introduce others. Prose can still mis-describe a correct figure, so where the two disagree, the tables and charts are the record.

Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.

Patent data carries limitations that apply to every figure above. Recent filings are under-counted, because an application is not public until roughly 18 months after filing and database loading adds further delay. The search string defines and constrains everything shown: records that use different terminology, or that sit outside the fields searched, are absent and cannot be counted. Applicant names, classification codes, legal-status codes and citation records are taken as recorded and may contain errors, duplicates, omissions or stale entries. Ordering by volume is not a measure of quality, scope, enforceability or commercial value, and a larger portfolio is not a stronger one. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.

Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, validity or infringement search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. No attorney-client relationship is created by it. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently against the primary records and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.

The question panel. The answers behind the suggested questions on this page were written when the page was generated, not in response to your click. The progress steps that play before an answer appears are an animation of how that analysis was done; nothing is being searched or computed at that moment. Typing your own question instead opens Patsnap Eureka, which does run it live.

Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company's registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.

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