On Monday, Medtronic made the design specifications for its Puritan Bennett 560 (PB 560) ventilator open source.
To access the files, you need to register on Medtronic's website. Beyond that, you are free to use the data to reproduce, and even sell, the ventilators. You can use pretty much everything except the logo; the legal language clearly spells that out, so stay away from that branding.
By making the design available, the company hopes manufacturers across multiple industries and around the globe will use the plans to ramp up ventilator manufacturing and help doctors and patients dealing with COVID-19 gain access to this critical equipment.
The PB 560 ventilator is a small and portable ventilator that treats both adults and children.
In a tweet, Omar Ishrak, Medtronic CEO, said, "An unprecedented human challenge requires an unprecedented response."
To download product and service manuals, design requirement documents, manufacturing documents, and schematics visit Medtronic.com/openventilator.
Ventilators are critical in the management of patients with severe respiratory illness, such as COVID-19. Without ventilation support, some patients will die.
The permissive license is effective from the time you download the files until the final day of the World Health Organization's Public Health Emergency of International Concern order; or October 1, 2024. Let's hope it's the former.
Since 2010, the PB 560 has become available in 35 countries around the world.
An update from the company:
To aid in the manufacturing evaluation, we first prioritized sharing the hardware design specifications and manufacturing instructions. Next, on March 31, we posted additional ventilator design documents, including manufacturing fixtures, printed circuit board drawings, multiple bills of materials (BOMs), and 3D CAD files.
On April 1, we posted software source code files. We're targeting providing final packages of documents with additional BOMs and other information by April 3.
Thank you for your patience as Medtronic rolls out this extensive information during this time and for your interest in addressing the critical need for ventilators.
