Extensions

Analysis of U.S. Patent 11,240,183: Term,Continuations, and Family

Patent Term Adjustments (PTA) and Extensions (PTE)

A review of the prosecution history for U.S. Patent 11,240,183 on the USPTO's public patent information resources indicates that there have been no Patent Term Adjustments (PTA) or Patent Term Extensions (PTE) granted for this patent. The patent's term is therefore calculated based on its filing and priority dates without additional adjustments.

Continuity and Divisional Applications

U.S. Patent 11,240,183 is a continuation of a preceding application. The specific continuity chain is as follows:

• This patent, issued from Application No. 17/036,709 (filed September 29, 2020), is a continuation of:
  • Application No. 15/892,129 (filed February 8, 2018), now U.S. Patent 10,841,253.

This indicates a direct line of continuation from the '129 application. There are no divisional applications directly related to Application No. 17/036,709.

Related Patent Family Members

U.S. Patent 11,240,183 is part of a larger family of patents and applications that claim priority back to a provisional application filed in 2011. The family shares the same core invention and includes numerous continuation applications, demonstrating an active and ongoing strategy to protect the technology.

The full priority claim is as follows:
This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 15/892,129 (now U.S. Pat. No. 10,841,253), which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 14/814,337 (now U.S. Pat. No. 9,894,019), which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 13/653,119 (now U.S. Pat. No. 9,106,599), which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/627,714, filed October 17, 2011.

Key family members include:

• Parent Application: U.S. Application No. 15/892,129 (now U.S. Patent 10,841,253)
• Grandparent Application: U.S. Application No. 14/814,337 (now U.S. Patent 9,894,019)
• Great-Grandparent Application: U.S. Application No. 13/653,119 (now U.S. Patent 9,106,599)
• Earliest Priority Application: U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/627,714 (filed October 17, 2011)

Additionally, this patent family includes several child applications that are continuations of this patent or its parents, indicating further prosecution of the invention. These include:

• U.S. Application No. 17/572,958 (now U.S. Patent 11,349,787)
• U.S. Application No. 17/573,056 (now U.S. Patent 11,336,597)
• U.S. Application No. 17/740,526 (now U.S. Patent 11,418,466)
• U.S. Application No. 17/868,970 (now U.S. Patent 11,855,936)
• U.S. Application No. 17/939,730 (now U.S. Patent 11,855,937)
• U.S. Application No. 18/225,987

Projected Expiration Date

The term of a U.S. patent filed after June 8, 1995, is 20 years from the filing date of the earliest non-provisional application to which it claims priority.

For U.S. Patent 11,240,183, the chain of priority leads back to the earliest non-provisional application, U.S. Application No. 13/653,119, which was filed on October 16, 2012. Provisional applications do not start the 20-year term clock.

Therefore, the projected expiration date is calculated as 20 years from this earliest filing date.

• Filing Date of Earliest Non-Provisional Application: October 16, 2012
• Term: + 20 years
• Projected Expiration Date: October 16, 2032

This expiration date is subject to the timely payment of all required maintenance fees to the USPTO.