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Expired European patentEurope

Focus control apparatus and methods

EP 0331502 B1 · Applicant: SONY CORPORATION

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Overview

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Listed from its EPO record in Patent Yard's archive of European patents past their term. Its claims, description and drawings are in the EPO PDF and on Google Patents, and the Claude kit works from them.

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Why it's free to use

  • Filed March 3, 1989 and granted May 31, 1995. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended March 3, 2009.
  • A supplementary protection certificate, which can extend a medicine or crop-protection patent, adds at most five and a half years, so even that would have ended by September 3, 2014.
  • We check European rights only. A US or other national patent in its family could still be in force: check its family on Espacenet or Google Patents.
FiledMarch 3, 1989
PublishedSeptember 6, 1989
GrantedMay 31, 1995
Term endedMarch 3, 2009
Application numberEP 89302118
Classification (CPC)H04N23/673

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1990199219941996199820002002200420062008Application filedMarch 3, 1989PublishedSep 6, 1989Patent grantedMay 31, 1995Term endedMarch 3, 2009

Sources & verification

Official EPO records

Full published documentClaims, description and drawings as a PDF.EPOEuropean Patent RegisterProcedure, status, file inspection and legal events.EPOLinked open EP data recordThe bibliographic record this page is built from.EPO

Cross-check elsewhere

Google PatentsFull text, worldwide family, citing patents and legal events.patents.google.comEspacenetNational family members and their legal status.European Patent Office

Everything on this page comes from the EPO record linked above. EPO data used under CC BY 4.0.