Extensions

The following provides an analysis of US patent 12015933 regarding patent term adjustments, extensions, application types, related family members, and projected expiration date.

Patent Term Adjustments (PTA)

Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) is a mechanism to extend the term of a U.S. patent to compensate for administrative delays by the USPTO during the prosecution of a utility or plant patent application. Delays that can lead to PTA include the USPTO failing to:

• Issue a first Office Action or notice of allowance within 14 months of filing.
• Respond to an applicant's reply to an Office Action within four months.
• Issue the patent within four months of payment of the issue fee.
• Issue a patent within 36 months from the filing date of an application.

The total PTA is added to the standard 20-year lifespan of a U.S. patent. However, any accrued PTA can be reduced by delays caused by the applicant. The USPTO calculates PTA at the time of patent issuance, and this calculation is included in the Issue Notification Letter.

Without access to the official USPTO patent prosecution history for US12015933, the exact Patent Term Adjustment cannot be determined. This information is typically found on the issue notification or through a detailed review of the patent's Private PAIR (Patent Application Information Retrieval) record.

Patent Term Extensions (PTE)

Patent Term Extension (PTE) is a separate statutory program under 35 U.S.C. § 156 that restores a portion of the patent term lost due to delays during regulatory review and approval by agencies like the FDA. PTE is applicable only to patents covering certain human drugs, food or color additives, animal drugs, veterinary biological products, and medical devices (specifically, Class III medical devices requiring pre-market approval under section 515 of the FFDCA). The maximum length of a PTE is five years, and only one patent can be extended for a given regulatory review period for a product.

Given that US12015933 relates to "Method and apparatus for processing bandwidth intensive data streams using virtual media access control and physical layers" for wireless networking systems, it is highly unlikely to be eligible for a Patent Term Extension under 35 U.S.C. § 156, as its subject matter does not fall within the categories of products requiring premarket regulatory approval by agencies like the FDA.

Continuation and Divisional Applications

• Continuation Application: A continuation application is a type of continuing application filed for an invention disclosed in a prior-filed, co-pending non-provisional application. It cannot introduce any new subject matter. The purpose is often to introduce a new set of claims and obtain further examination.
• Divisional Application: A divisional application is typically filed as a result of a restriction requirement made by an examiner, where different inventions were claimed in a single parent application. It pursues claims to an invention that was not elected in the previous application. A divisional application must be filed while the parent application is still pending.

US12015933 is identified as a "continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/532,175 filed Dec. 7, 2023". This indicates that US12015933 is a continuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/532,175.

The patent text explicitly states the following lineage, indicating a series of continuation applications:

• This application (US12015933) is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/532,175, filed Dec. 7, 2023.
• U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/532,175 claims the benefit of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/448,281, filed Aug. 11, 2023 (now U.S. Pat. No. 11,849,337).
• U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/448,281 claims the benefit of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/468,509, filed Sep. 7, 2021 (now U.S. Pat. No. 11,818,591).
• U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/468,509 claims the benefit of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/039,660, filed Jul. 19, 2018 (now U.S. Pat. No. 11,115,834).
• U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/039,660 claims the benefit of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/526,799, filed Oct. 29, 2014 (now U.S. Pat. No. 10,034,179).
• U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/526,799 claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/897,219, filed Oct. 30, 2013, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/897,216, filed Oct. 30, 2013.

Related Family Members

The patent text identifies a "Family ID=52995357" which includes several related applications. These are listed as "Family Applications" and "Applications Claiming Priority" and include both granted patents and pending applications that share the same priority date of October 30, 2013.

Here is a list of explicitly mentioned and implicitly related family members based on the provided text, all claiming priority from the initial provisional applications filed on October 30, 2013:

Direct Lineage (from Description Section):

• US12015933B1 (This patent, filed 2024-03-04)
• US18/594,375 (Application number for US12015933)
• US18/532,175 (Continuation of, filed 2023-12-07, now US11950105B1)
• US18/448,281 (Continuation of, filed 2023-08-11, now US11849337B1)
• US17/468,509 (Continuation of, filed 2021-09-07, now US11818591B2)
• US16/039,660 (Continuation of, filed 2018-07-19, now US11115834B2)
• US14/526,799 (Continuation of, filed 2014-10-29, now US10034179B2)
• US Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/897,219 (Priority date: 2013-10-30)
• US Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/897,216 (Priority date: 2013-10-30)

Other Family Applications (from "Family Applications" and "Applications Claiming Priority" tables):

• US10034179B2 (Application 14/526,799, filed 2014-10-29)
• US11115834B2 (Application 16/039,660, filed 2018-07-19)
• US11818591B2 (Application 17/468,509, filed 2021-09-07)
• US11856414B1 (Application 18/447,597, filed 2023-08-10)
• US11849337B1 (Application 18/448,281, filed 2023-08-11)
• US11974143B2 (Application 18/470,540, filed 2023-09-20)
• US11950105B1 (Application 18/532,175, filed 2023-12-07)
• US12003976B1 (Application 18/594,381, filed 2024-03-04)
• US12114177B2 (Application 18/603,732, filed 2024-03-13)
• US12250564B2 (Application 18/621,425, filed 2024-03-29)
• US12169756B2 (Application 18/787,267, filed 2024-07-29)
• US12190198B1 (Application 18/819,635, filed 2024-08-29)
• US20250212014A1 (Application 19/074,896, filed 2025-03-10)

This extensive list indicates a strategy of filing multiple continuation applications.

Projected Expiration Date

The standard patent term for utility patents filed on or after June 8, 1995, is 20 years from the earliest claimed non-provisional filing date. The earliest non-provisional filing date for US12015933, based on its lineage, is October 29, 2014 (for application US14/526,799). The priority date is October 30, 2013, from the provisional applications.

The Google Patents record for US12015933 explicitly states an "Anticipated expiration" date of 2034-10-29. This date aligns with 20 years from the earliest non-provisional filing date (October 29, 2014). This expiration date would include any Patent Term Adjustments (PTA) that might have been granted, as PTA extends the 20-year term. However, as noted above, without the official USPTO prosecution history, the specific PTA amount cannot be independently verified. No Patent Term Extension (PTE) is anticipated for this type of patent.