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Expired European patentEurope

Improved system for making absorbent paper products

EP 0873446 B1 · Applicant: KIMBERLY-CLARK WORLDWIDE, INC.

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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 December 20, 1996 and granted May 7, 2003. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended December 20, 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 June 20, 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.
FiledDecember 20, 1996
PublishedOctober 28, 1998
GrantedMay 7, 2003
Term endedDecember 20, 2016
Application numberEP 96944911
Classification (CPC)D21F11/006 +1 more

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1997199920012003200520072009201120132015Application filedDec 20, 1996PublishedOct 28, 1998Patent grantedMay 7, 2003Term endedDec 20, 2016

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

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