Extensions

Patent Term and Family Analysis for US Patent 6,502,135

As of May 11, 2026, this analysis details the term, continuity, and family data for US Patent 6,502,135.

Projected Expiration

• Earliest Priority Date: The patent's 20-year term is calculated from the filing date of the earliest non-provisional application in its priority chain. For US 6,502,135, this is the filing date of U.S. Application Ser. No. 09/429,643, which was filed on October 29, 1999. This parent application itself claims priority to provisional application 60/106,261, filed October 30, 1998, but the provisional filing does not start the 20-year term.
• Calculated Expiration Date: Based on the October 29, 1999, priority date, the patent term was projected to expire 20 years later on October 29, 2019.
• Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) / Extension (PTE): A review of the patent's prosecution history in the USPTO Patent Center for the corresponding application (Ser. No. 09/504,783) confirms that there were zero days of Patent Term Adjustment granted. There is no record of any Patent Term Extension.
• Final Status: The patent has expired and is no longer in force. Its effective lifecycle concluded on October 29, 2019.

Continuity and Related Applications

US Patent 6,502,135 is part of an extensive family of patents that claim priority to the same set of initial applications. This is a common strategy to pursue claims of varying scope directed to different aspects of the core invention.

• Direct Parent Application:

  • This patent is a Continuation-in-Part of U.S. Application Ser. No. 09/429,643 (filed October 29, 1999), which later issued as US Patent 7,010,604.

• Subsequent Applications (Continuations/Divisionals):

  • The technology disclosed in the '135 patent and its parent has given rise to a large number of subsequent continuation and divisional applications filed by SAIC and later VirnetX. This has resulted in dozens of issued U.S. patents, creating a dense web of related intellectual property.
  • Notable issued patents that are descendants of this patent family include, but are not limited to: US 7,418,504, US 7,490,151, US 7,921,211, US 7,987,274, US 8,051,181, US 8,504,697, and US 8,874,771.

Patent Family Members

The '135 patent is part of a global patent family, with corresponding applications filed in various international jurisdictions.

• U.S. Patent Family: The family includes dozens of issued patents and published applications in the United States, as noted in the continuity section.
• International Patent Family: The original invention was also filed internationally through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) as application WO/2001/061922. This led to corresponding patents and applications in other major patent offices, including:
  • European Patent Office (EP): EP1305914B1
  • Japan (JP): JP3923312B2
  • Australia (AU): AU2001238123A1

This extensive and prolonged prosecution of a large patent family, both domestically and internationally, is a hallmark of a sophisticated and deliberate patent assertion strategy.