Extensions

Term and Continuity Analysis of US Patent 6,044,382

A detailed analysis of the prosecution and family data for U.S. Patent 6,044,382 reveals the following information regarding its term, related applications, and international counterparts.

Patent Term and Expiration

• Patent Term Adjustments (PTA) / Extensions (PTE): A review of the patent's bibliographic data in the USPTO's public database shows no indication of any Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) or Patent Term Extension (PTE). The application was filed on June 20, 1997, and issued on March 28, 2000. Under the patent laws in effect at that time, PTA for administrative delays was not yet established in its current form, which began for applications filed on or after May 29, 2000. Therefore, no PTA was calculated or awarded.

• Projected Expiration Date: The application for this patent (US 08/877,636) was filed on June 20, 1997. It claims priority to an earlier application (US 08/446,546) filed on May 19, 1995. For patents filed after June 8, 1995, the term is twenty years from the earliest non-provisional filing date. Therefore, the twenty-year term for this patent is calculated from the May 19, 1995, priority date.

  • Calculation: May 19, 1995 + 20 years = May 19, 2015.

  As of today's date, May 11, 2026, this patent is expired.

Continuity and Related Applications

The patent application that resulted in US 6,044,382 is part of a chain of related filings.

• Parent Application: US patent 6,044,382 issued from application number 08/877,636, which was a continuation of application 08/446,546, filed on May 19, 1995. This parent application subsequently issued as US Patent 5,805,676. The '382 patent claims priority to this '546 application.

• Continuation or Divisional Applications: There are no child applications (continuations or divisionals) that claim priority back to US 6,044,382 or its direct application (08/877,636). The continuity chain ends with this patent.

Patent Family

The invention was also filed internationally, creating a patent family. The following are related foreign counterparts that claim priority to the original U.S. application:

• WIPO (PCT): WO/1998/059301
• European Patent Office: EP0996895
• Canada: CA2295139
• Germany: DE69832383
• Austria: AT310278
• Taiwan: TW448364
• Israel: IL133496

This international filing indicates an initial intent to seek broad protection for the technology in multiple key markets. The current legal status of these foreign patents would require individual examination in their respective national patent offices.