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Expired European patentEurope

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EP 0442220 B1 · Applicant: SGS-Thomson Microelectronics Limited

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Overview

The published document from the EPO: abstract, claims, description and drawings. Open it full size

Read the whole patent

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.

Why it's free to use

  • Filed December 21, 1990 and granted October 22, 1997. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended December 21, 2010.
  • 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 June 21, 2016.
  • 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.
FiledDecember 21, 1990
PublishedAugust 21, 1991
GrantedOctober 22, 1997
Term endedDecember 21, 2010
Application numberEP 90314121
Classification (CPC)G06F1/02 +2 more

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1991199319951997199920012003200520072009Application filedDec 21, 1990PublishedAug 21, 1991Patent grantedOct 22, 1997Term endedDec 21, 2010

Sources & verification