Patent Yard Sign in
Expired European patentEurope

Envelope for transparency

EP 0690998 B1 · Applicant: MINNESOTA MINING AND MANUFACTURING COMPANY

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.

Google PatentsEPO PDF

Why it's free to use

  • Filed February 22, 1994 and granted November 5, 1997. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended February 22, 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 August 22, 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.
FiledFebruary 22, 1994
PublishedJanuary 10, 1996
GrantedNovember 5, 1997
Term endedFebruary 22, 2014
Application numberEP 94911405
Classification (CPC)G03B21/132 +1 more

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1995199719992001200320052007200920112013Application filedFeb 22, 1994PublishedJan 10, 1996Patent grantedNov 5, 1997Term endedFeb 22, 2014

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.