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Expired European patentEurope

Bar like article supplying apparatus in hopper

EP 0461679 B1 · Applicant: Japan Tobacco Inc.

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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 27, 1987 and granted December 29, 1997. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended March 27, 2007.
  • 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 27, 2012.
  • 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 27, 1987
PublishedDecember 18, 1991
GrantedDecember 29, 1997
Term endedMarch 27, 2007
Application numberEP 91114133
Classification (CPC)A24C5/356

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1988199019921994199619982000200220042006Application filedMarch 27, 1987PublishedDec 18, 1991Patent grantedDec 29, 1997Term endedMarch 27, 2007

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.