Patent Yard Sign in
Expired European patentEurope

Managing letterbox signals with logos and closed captions

EP 0625852 B1 · Applicant: THOMSON CONSUMER ELECTRONICS, 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 May 17, 1994 and granted August 25, 1999. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended May 17, 2014.
  • 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 November 17, 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.
FiledMay 17, 1994
PublishedNovember 23, 1994
GrantedAugust 25, 1999
Term endedMay 17, 2014
Application numberEP 94107581
Classification (CPC)H04N7/01 +2 more

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1995199719992001200320052007200920112013Application filedMay 17, 1994PublishedNov 23, 1994Patent grantedAug 25, 1999Term endedMay 17, 2014

Sources & verification