Extensions

For US Patent 7,051,306, here's an analysis of its term and related applications:

Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) and Patent Term Extension (PTE):
The front page of US Patent 7,051,306 states, "Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U.S.C. 154(b) by 0 days." This indicates that there was no Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) granted for this patent due to USPTO delays. PTA can add days to a patent's 20-year term to compensate for certain delays during prosecution at the USPTO.

There is no indication in the patent document itself or in the provided search results that this patent has received a Patent Term Extension (PTE). PTE is typically granted to patents covering products, such as pharmaceuticals or medical devices, that have undergone lengthy regulatory review periods by agencies like the FDA before they can be commercially marketed.

Continuation and Divisional Applications:
The patent lists a "Related U.S. Application Data" section, stating that it claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/468,742, filed on May 7, 2003.

The Google Patents page for US7051306B2 lists several "Priority Applications," which can include continuations, divisionals, and continuations-in-part:

• US10/840,893 (this is the application number for US7051306B2 itself)
• US11/336,097, which resulted in US7415680B2 (filed 2006-01-20, priority to 2003-05-07)
• US12/176,645, which resulted in US7945885B2 (filed 2008-07-21, priority to 2003-05-07)
• US12/332,529, which resulted in US7996811B2 (filed 2008-12-11, priority to 2003-05-07)
• US13/164,362, which resulted in US8782590B2 (filed 2011-06-20, priority to 2003-05-07)
• US13/473,129, which resulted in US8762923B2 (filed 2012-05-16, priority to 2003-05-07)
• US14/324,297, which resulted in US9166412B2 (filed 2014-07-07, priority to 2003-05-07)
• US14/865,905, which resulted in US9660616B2 (filed 2015-09-25, priority to 2003-05-07)
• US15/490,557, which resulted in US10243542B2 (filed 2017-04-18, priority to 2003-05-07)
• US16/226,917, which resulted in US10749506B2 (filed 2018-12-20, priority to 2003-05-07)
• US16/928,311, which resulted in US11362645B2 (filed 2020-07-14, priority to 2003-05-07)

These applications generally claim priority back to the original provisional application, meaning they are related family members, likely continuations or divisionals, as they share the same priority date of May 7, 2003. A continuation application claims the same subject matter as an earlier non-provisional application and is filed before the parent application is abandoned. A divisional application is a later application for an independent invention carved out of an earlier application.

Projected Expiration Date:
For applications filed on or after June 8, 1995, the term of a utility patent in the US generally ends 20 years from the filing date of the earliest application for which a benefit is claimed under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, or 365(c).

US Patent 7,051,306 was filed on May 7, 2004, and claims benefit from a provisional application filed on May 7, 2003. Therefore, its term would typically be 20 years from the earliest priority date, May 7, 2003.

Thus, the anticipated expiration date for US Patent 7,051,306 was May 7, 2023. The patent's legal status is already listed as "Expired - Lifetime" on Google Patents, with an anticipated expiration date of 2024-05-07, which is a year after the 20-year term from the priority date. It's important to note that the "anticipated expiration" date on Google Patents may sometimes reflect the filing date of the non-provisional application rather than the earliest priority date if no PTA or PTE were applied. However, without PTA or PTE, the patent would have expired on May 7, 2023 (20 years from the provisional filing date of May 7, 2003).