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Expired European patentEurope

Ring for a hard contact lens and hard contact lens composite employing such a ring

EP 0887686 B1 · Applicant: Menicon Co., Ltd.

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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.

Why it's free to use

  • Filed June 25, 1998 and granted May 14, 2003. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended June 25, 2018.
  • 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 December 25, 2023.
  • 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.
FiledJune 25, 1998
PublishedDecember 30, 1998
GrantedMay 14, 2003
Term endedJune 25, 2018
Application numberEP 98111749
Classification (CPC)G02C7/04 +1 more

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1999200120032005200720092011201320152017Application filedJune 25, 1998PublishedDec 30, 1998Patent grantedMay 14, 2003Term endedJune 25, 2018

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