George Weisz was a Hungarian mechanical engineer, philanthropist, film producer and father of three, including Oscar-winning actress Rachel Weisz. He invented a “pioneering artificial ventilator pneumatically powered by its own oxygen cylinder”. These ventilators are currently helping the NHS intensive care units across the UK manage the coronavirus pandemic.

The early designs and description of these Pneupac breathing machines can be found using PatBase, a leading global patent database holding about 140 million patent documents, with a simple assignee search. PatBase organises patents into patent families, collecting all related patent documents of one invention under one umbrella. This makes it easy to review the information found in the 50+ patent documents assigned to Pneupac that are organised into just 12 families.

Many of the Pneupac patents disclose inventions for ventilators and oscillators, as the late George Weisz invented. Using PatBase Analytics, the quick and intuitive analysis program developed by Minesoft, we can see the value of these inventions in the number of forwards citations over time. Many top analysts believe the number of forward citations is the biggest predictor of patent value, as it is a sign of industry-wide investment in a specific technology area. The first patent in Pneupac’s portfolio was published in 1975. Since then, there has been an upward trend in the number of forward citations.

Patent citations are also a great source of competitor information and business intelligence. Competitors, licensing opportunities and potential patent infringements can be quickly identified when viewing forward citations. Especially on powerful analytics platforms like PatBase Analytics, which can generate citation network maps visually summarising complex data.

The publication of patents ensures the long-term usefulness of inventions, allowing information to be shared and ideas to be built upon. This accumulation of well-documented ideas ensures continued development and innovation. This process is seen specifically in forward citations.

To view the Pneupac patents analysed in this article in more detail, you can open them in this PatBase folder here: https://www.patbase.com/getimg/offline/?f=FOLDER_radE8748.tmpPBWEBSERV2343550.88_2020_6_9

PatBase and PatBase Express are powerful tools for patent searching and analysis. Sharing patent information is made simple, requiring just a few clicks. Information from PatBase and PatBase Express can be shared with colleagues easily, including Analytics Reports.

Click here to learn more about PatBase, and register for a two-week free trial: https://minesoft.com/our-products/patbase/