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Expired European patentEurope

Processing method and apparatus

EP 0477890 B1 · Applicant: CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA

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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 September 25, 1991 and granted April 25, 2001. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended September 25, 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 March 25, 2017.
  • 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.
FiledSeptember 25, 1991
PublishedApril 1, 1992
GrantedApril 25, 2001
Term endedSeptember 25, 2011
Application numberEP 91116309
Classification (CPC)G03F1/68 +2 more

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1992199419961998200020022004200620082010Application filedSep 25, 1991PublishedApril 1, 1992Patent grantedApril 25, 2001Term endedSep 25, 2011

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.