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Expired European patentEurope

Focus detecting apparatus

EP 0556598 B1 · Applicant: NIKON CORPORATION

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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 January 26, 1993 and granted November 19, 1997. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended January 26, 2013.
  • 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 26, 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.
FiledJanuary 26, 1993
PublishedAugust 25, 1993
GrantedNovember 19, 1997
Term endedJanuary 26, 2013
Application numberEP 93101128
Classification (CPC)G02B7/346

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1994199619982000200220042006200820102012Application filedJan 26, 1993PublishedAug 25, 1993Patent grantedNov 19, 1997Term endedJan 26, 2013

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.