An optical disc recording and reproducing apparatus for performing a formatting process as a background process and a method for formatting an optical disc by a background process

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 August 24, 1998 and never granted as a European patent. Had it been granted, its 20-year term would have ended August 24, 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 February 24, 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.