Patent Yard Sign in
Expired European patentEurope

Annular ultrasonic transducers in a catheter

EP 0553257 B1 · Applicant: ECHO CATH, INC.

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 October 8, 1991 and granted September 10, 1997. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended October 8, 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 April 8, 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.
FiledOctober 8, 1991
PublishedAugust 4, 1993
GrantedSeptember 10, 1997
Term endedOctober 8, 2011
Application numberEP 91919875
Classification (CPC)A61B8/12 +2 more

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1992199419961998200020022004200620082010Application filedOct 8, 1991PublishedAug 4, 1993Patent grantedSep 10, 1997Term endedOct 8, 2011

Sources & verification