Patent Yard Sign in
Expired European patentEurope

Alignment method

EP 0494789 B1 · Applicant: CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA

EPO PDF

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 January 10, 1992 and granted July 28, 1999. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended January 10, 2012.
  • 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 July 10, 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.
FiledJanuary 10, 1992
PublishedJuly 15, 1992
GrantedJuly 28, 1999
Term endedJanuary 10, 2012
Application numberEP 92300213
Classification (CPC)G03F9/7023 +1 more

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1993199519971999200120032005200720092011Application filedJan 10, 1992PublishedJuly 15, 1992Patent grantedJuly 28, 1999Term endedJan 10, 2012

Sources & verification