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Expired European patentEurope

Molten steel smelting apparatus for producing ultra-low carbon steel and a smelting method using this apparatus

EP 0879896 B1 · Applicant: POHANG IRON & STEEL CO., LTD.

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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 December 30, 1996 and granted March 13, 2002. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended December 30, 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 30, 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 30, 1996
PublishedNovember 25, 1998
GrantedMarch 13, 2002
Term endedDecember 30, 2016
Application numberEP 96944131
Classification (CPC)C21C7/10

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1997199920012003200520072009201120132015Application filedDec 30, 1996PublishedNov 25, 1998Patent grantedMarch 13, 2002Term endedDec 30, 2016

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