Extensions

This analysis will leverage information directly from the USPTO via Google's search capabilities to provide detailed information about US patent 12336052.

Patent Term Adjustments (PTA) and Patent Term Extensions (PTE)

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) does not calculate expiration dates for patents; however, they do provide a calculator to help estimate these dates. Patent term adjustment (PTA) can extend the term of a U.S. patent to compensate for delays caused by the USPTO during prosecution, for utility or plant patent applications filed on or after May 29, 2000. These delays include the USPTO failing to:

• Issue a first Office Action or notice of allowance within 14 months of filing.
• Issue an action within four months of an applicant's response to an Office Action.
• Issue a patent within four months of payment of the issue fee.
• Issue a patent within three years of the actual filing date of the application.

Patent term extension (PTE), on the other hand, is available for patents on certain human drugs, food or color additives, medical devices, animal drugs, and veterinary biological products to restore time lost during the premarket government approval process by a regulatory agency.

Given that US12336052 is a utility patent (implied by the claims and subject matter), it would be eligible for PTA. However, without direct access to the official USPTO Patent Center for US12336052's file history, the specific PTA amount cannot be determined with certainty. The provided information does not indicate that this patent is related to a product requiring regulatory approval, thus PTE under 35 U.S.C. 156 is unlikely.

Continuation and Divisional Applications

US Patent 12336052 is a continuation of several earlier applications. Specifically, the patent states:

• "This application is a continuation of Ser. No. 18/883,830, filed Sep. 12, 2024, and entitled Method And System For Using A Situational Network."
• "which is a continuation of Ser. No. 18/639,871 (now U.S. Pat. No. 12,120,769), filed Apr. 18, 2024, and entitled Method And System For Using A Situational Network."
• "which is a continuation of Ser. No. 17/902,427 (now abandoned), filed Sep. 2, 2022, and entitled Method And System For Using A Situational Network."
• "which is a continuation of Ser. No. 16/730,339 (now U.S. Pat. No. 11,470,682), filed Dec. 30, 2019, and entitled Method And System For Using A Situational Network."
• "which is a continuation of Ser. No. 16/207,059 (now U.S. Pat. No. 10,524,307)."
  The chain of continuation applications extends further back to earlier filings, including Ser. No. 13/612,964 (now U.S. Pat. No. 9,143,535), filed Sep. 13, 2012, which itself was a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/274,712 (now U.S. Pat. No. 8,332,454), filed Oct. 17, 2011. The application Ser. No. 13/274,712 is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/924,711 (now U.S. Pat. No. 8,069,202), filed Oct. 25, 2007.

A divisional application is filed when an examiner determines that a patent application contains more than one invention, and the applicant chooses to pursue the unelected inventions in separate applications. A continuation application claims the benefit of an earlier-filed, still-pending non-provisional application, using the same specification and drawings.

Related Family Members

The patent states it is a continuation of several applications, which are themselves patents, forming a complex family. These include:

• US Patent No. 12,120,769
• US Patent No. 11,470,682
• US Patent No. 10,524,307
• US Patent No. 9,143,535
• US Patent No. 8,332,454
• US Patent No. 8,069,202

These are all part of the "extended patent family," meaning they share at least one priority claim in common.

Projected Expiration Date

For utility patents, the standard term is 20 years from the filing date of the earliest non-provisional application for which a benefit is claimed. The patent application US12336052 claims priority back to an application filed on October 25, 2007 (U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/924,711).

Therefore, the base 20-year term would be calculated from the priority date of October 25, 2007.
2007 + 20 years = 2027.

The "Legal status" section on Google Patents for US12336052 lists an "Anticipated expiration" date of 2027-10-26. This aligns with the 20-year term from the earliest priority date (October 25, 2007), with a possible one-day adjustment for the expiration calculation. This projected expiration date would be subject to any Patent Term Adjustments (PTA) for USPTO delays and the timely payment of maintenance fees, but such specific PTA data is not publicly available in the search results without directly accessing the USPTO file history for this patent.