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Expired European patentEurope

Control key mechanism

EP 0581583 B1 · Applicant: SEGA ENTERPRISES, LTD.

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Overview

The published document from the EPO: abstract, claims, description and drawings. Open it full size

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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 July 28, 1993 and granted January 7, 1999. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended July 28, 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 January 28, 2019.
  • 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.
FiledJuly 28, 1993
PublishedFebruary 2, 1994
GrantedJanuary 7, 1999
Term endedJuly 28, 2013
Application numberEP 93305955
Classification (CPC)H01H25/041

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1994199619982000200220042006200820102012Application filedJuly 28, 1993PublishedFeb 2, 1994Patent grantedJan 7, 1999Term endedJuly 28, 2013

Sources & verification