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Expired European patentEurope

Method and process for optical inspection of test objects

EP 0453977 B1 · Applicant: Firma Carl Zeiss

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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.

Why it's free to use

  • Filed April 19, 1991 and granted May 27, 1998. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended April 19, 2011.
  • 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 October 19, 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.
FiledApril 19, 1991
PublishedOctober 30, 1991
GrantedMay 27, 1998
Term endedApril 19, 2011
Application numberEP 91106293
Classification (CPC)G06T7/0002 +2 more

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1992199419961998200020022004200620082010Application filedApril 19, 1991PublishedOct 30, 1991Patent grantedMay 27, 1998Term endedApril 19, 2011

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