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Expired European patentEurope

Shape memory effect surgical needles

EP 0529675 B1 · Applicant: ETHICON 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 August 31, 1992 and granted February 7, 1996. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended August 31, 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 March 3, 2018.
  • 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.
FiledAugust 31, 1992
PublishedMarch 3, 1993
GrantedFebruary 7, 1996
Term endedAugust 31, 2012
Application numberEP 92114867
Classification (CPC)A61B17/0469 +2 more

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1993199519971999200120032005200720092011Application filedAug 31, 1992PublishedMarch 3, 1993Patent grantedFeb 7, 1996Term endedAug 31, 2012

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