Patent number: 6598148
Filing date: Jul 29, 1998
Issue date: Jul 22, 2003
Application number: 09/124,623

http://www.google.com/patents/US6598148

All patents (other than design patents) that were in force on June 8, 1995, or that issued on an application that was filed before June 8, 1995, have a term that is the greater of the "twenty-year term" or seventeen years from the patent grant. See 35 U.S.C. 154(c). A patent granted on an international application filed before June 8, 1995, and which entered the national stage under 35 U.S.C. 371 before, on or after June 8, 1995, will have a term that is the greater of seventeen years from the date of grant or twenty years from the international filing date or any earlier filing date relied upon under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121 or 365(c). The terms of these patents are subject to reduction by any applicable terminal disclaimers (discussed below).

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/2700_2701.htm