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Expired European patentEurope

Confocal microscope

EP 0753779 B1 · Applicant: Yokogawa Electric Corporation

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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 5, 1996 and granted September 10, 2003. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended July 5, 2016.
  • 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 5, 2022.
  • 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 5, 1996
PublishedJanuary 15, 1997
GrantedSeptember 10, 2003
Term endedJuly 5, 2016
Application numberEP 96110909
Classification (CPC)G02B21/0024 +2 more

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1997199920012003200520072009201120132015Application filedJuly 5, 1996PublishedJan 15, 1997Patent grantedSep 10, 2003Term endedJuly 5, 2016

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