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The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →310 patent families and 550 records cover timer-based lubrication controllers, with no single filer ahead of the rest.
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 In force = 71 of 550 records still granted and maintained at the data cut-off; the rest are pending, withdrawn, refused or lapsed.
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 The rest are pending, withdrawn, refused, lapsed or not determinable, and that breakdown is not available in finer detail here.
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.
Two views of the same 310-family pool: how filings have published over time, and which IPC subclasses they fall into.
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.
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.
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%.
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%.
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about timer based automatic lubrication controller system patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA 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 recordSelected 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.
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →Three figures worth sitting with before reading the filer table.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The figures above describe counts and shares. Reading what any specific filing actually covers takes the claim set itself.
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.
Open Patsnap Eureka →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.
Set up filer tracking →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 →This search returns 550 published records, which de-duplicate to 310 simple patent families once the same invention filed in multiple countries is combined. The search string carries no date limit, so this reflects whatever years the matching records happen to fall in, not a fixed study period. Records vs. families are different units; use whichever one matches the comparison you are making.
Three filers are tied at the top of this dataset with 4 simple patent families each: Tokico Ltd, General Motors LLC and Stewart Warner Corp. No single filer holds more than the other two, and 78 of the 86 listed filers hold 2 or fewer families each, so the field is spread across many small portfolios rather than concentrated in one place. Filer names are not rolled up to corporate group, so related entities appear as separate rows and are never summed on this page.
F16N is the IPC subclass covering lubrication systems, and it is named on 97 of the 310 simple patent families in scope here (31.3%), the highest share of any subclass in this dataset. Because one family can carry more than one IPC subclass, this figure and the others on the chart add up to more than 100% together. A high share means the classification appears often in this result set, not that the technology itself is mature or saturated.
No single data source returns every filer for a technology; this dataset is capped at 86 listed filer entities and only the largest 30 are shown in the on-page table. Individual-inventor filings have been removed from that filer list but remain inside every total and share quoted on the page, which is why the listed rows add up to less than the full family count. The filing-trend chart also shows only a recent window, and records from 2022 onward are still filling in as later filings publish.
No. A family count, an IPC classification or an abstract summary cannot establish what a granted patent's claims actually require or how far they reach; only the granted claim set and prosecution history can do that, and equivalents can extend a claim beyond its literal wording. If a specific design decision depends on freedom-to-operate, the claims of the relevant filings need to be read directly rather than inferred from counts shown here.
Go past this page: query the whole timer based automatic lubrication controller system patent landscape corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
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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