Extensions

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

US Patent 7257582 was filed on February 27, 2003, and issued on August 14, 2007. Since the application was filed after June 8, 1995, it is eligible for Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) and potentially Patent Term Extension (PTE) under 35 U.S.C. § 154.

• Patent Term Adjustment (PTA): PTA is granted to compensate for delays caused by the USPTO during patent prosecution. It includes A-delays (USPTO delays during prosecution), B-delays (failure to issue a patent within three years of filing), and C-delays (delays due to interferences, secrecy orders, or appeals). The PTA determination is typically provided with the Issue Notification Letter and is indicated on the face of the patent. Without direct access to the patent's issue notification or official USPTO records for this specific patent, the exact PTA amount cannot be determined.
• Patent Term Extension (PTE): PTE is available to compensate for delays due to regulatory review processes, most notably for pharmaceutical products, and is governed by 35 U.S.C. § 156. There is no information in the provided patent text or search results to indicate that US7257582 was subject to such regulatory review, making a PTE unlikely.

Continuation and Divisional Applications

• Continuation Applications: A continuation application is a second application for the same invention claimed in a prior non-provisional application and filed before the patenting or abandonment of or termination of proceedings on the first application. The continuation application reuses the specification and drawings of the parent application but may have new claims.
• Divisional Applications: A divisional application is a later application for a distinct invention carved out of an earlier "parent" application. It is filed when the USPTO determines that an initial application claims more than one invention and requires restriction.

The Google Patents page for US7257582 lists its application number as US10/375,893 and indicates a priority to US10/375,893 (the same application number) and also refers to it as a "nonprovisional application corresponding to Ser. No. 60/363,853 filed 13 Mar 2002." This suggests that US10/375,893 is a non-provisional application claiming benefit from a provisional application (US 60/363,853). However, the information provided does not explicitly identify any continuation or divisional applications directly of US7257582 itself that have subsequently issued as separate patents.

Related Family Members

The patent family for US7257582 includes several international applications that claim priority from the same earlier application as US7257582:

• Priority Applications:
  • US10/375,893 (US7257582B2) - Filed: 2003-02-27, Priority: 2002-03-13
  • AU2003214605A (AU2003214605A1) - Filed: 2003-03-13, Priority: 2002-03-13
  • PCT/IL2003/000216 (WO2003077157A2) - Filed: 2003-03-13, Priority: 2002-03-13
  • EP03710186A (EP1488348A2) - Filed: 2003-03-13, Priority: 2002-03-13

These are international counterparts of the same invention, sharing the same priority date of March 13, 2002.

Projected Expiration Date

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

US Patent 7257582 claims priority to provisional application Ser. No. 60/363,853, filed on March 13, 2002. The non-provisional application (US10/375,893) was filed on February 27, 2003. Since the patent claims priority to the provisional application, the earliest effective filing date for calculating the patent term is March 13, 2002.

Therefore, the unadjusted patent term would be 20 years from March 13, 2002.

• 20 years from March 13, 2002 = March 13, 2022.

However, the Google Patents information explicitly states the "Adjusted expiration" date as August 27, 2025, and the "Legal status" as "Expired - Lifetime, expires 2025-08-27". This indicates that Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) was applied, extending the term beyond the 20-year anniversary of the earliest priority date. The specific details of this adjustment are not fully available in the provided text.

Given the information from Google Patents, the projected (and actual) expiration date of US Patent 7257582 is August 27, 2025.