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		Publication date The publication date is the date on which the patent application was first published. It is the date on which the patent document is made available to the public, thereby becoming part of the state of the art. The publication date can be entered in any of the following four formats: • If you enter 19961023, you will find patent documents published on 23 October 1996. The complete publication date (yyyymmdd) is made up of the publication year (four digits), the publication month (two digits) and the publication day (two digits). • If you enter 199610, you will find patent documents published in October 1996. The partial publication date, including the month (yyyymm), is made up of the publication year (four digits) and the publication month (two digits). • If you enter 1996, you will find patent documents published in 1996. The partial publication date, for the year only (yyyy), is made up of the publication year (four digits) • The publication date can also be formatted by the publication day (two digits) followed by a slash "/", the publication month (two digits), followed by a slash "/" and the publication year (four digits). For example: 23/10/1996 (dd/mm/yyyy) Due to system limitations , it is not possible to search within date ranges. You may enter up to four dates separated by the OR operator in the publication date field. Click here for a table showing the oldest and the most recent documents available for each country. Check the Newsflashes on our home page for the latest updates.