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Expired European patentEurope

Digital distribution apparatus

EP 0486331 B1 · Applicant: ADC TELECOMMUNICATIONS, 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.

Why it's free to use

  • Filed September 30, 1991 and granted July 24, 1996. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended September 30, 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 30, 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 30, 1991
PublishedMay 20, 1992
GrantedJuly 24, 1996
Term endedSeptember 30, 2011
Application numberEP 91402605
Classification (CPC)H04Q1/14

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1992199419961998200020022004200620082010Application filedSep 30, 1991PublishedMay 20, 1992Patent grantedJuly 24, 1996Term endedSep 30, 2011

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