Patent Yard Sign in
Expired European patentEurope

Sample retrieval system

EP 1031020 B1 · Applicant: FISHER CONTROLS INTERNATIONAL LLC

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.

Why it's free to use

  • Filed October 28, 1998 and granted December 17, 2008. A European patent lasts at most 20 years from filing, so its term ended October 28, 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 April 28, 2024.
  • 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.
FiledOctober 28, 1998
PublishedAugust 30, 2000
GrantedDecember 17, 2008
Term endedOctober 28, 2018
Application numberEP 98956291
Classification (CPC)G01N1/2226

Timeline

Timeline From EPO dates

1999200120032005200720092011201320152017Application filedOct 28, 1998PublishedAug 30, 2000Patent grantedDec 17, 2008Term endedOct 28, 2018

Sources & verification