Extensions

US Patent 7359437, issued on April 15, 2008, and stemming from application US10/036,234 filed on December 24, 2001, has an adjusted expiration date of May 7, 2025. The patent's legal status is "Expired - Lifetime" as of that date.

Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) and Patent Term Extension (PTE):
The stated adjusted expiration date of May 7, 2025, is significantly later than the statutory 20-year term from its filing date of December 24, 2001 (which would have been December 24, 2021). This difference indicates that Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) was applied to compensate for delays during the patent's prosecution by the USPTO. The total PTA amounts to approximately 3 years and 5 months. The patent text does not mention any Patent Term Extension (PTE), which is typically associated with delays due to regulatory review processes for products like pharmaceuticals.

Continuation Applications, Divisional Applications, and Related Family Members:

• Parent Application Relationship: US7359437 (application US10/036,234) is explicitly identified as a continuation-in-part of pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/954,663, which was filed on September 12, 2001.
• Other Priority Claims (Family Members): The patent claims priority to numerous other applications, indicating a broad patent family. These include:
  • U.S. Applications: US10/095,422 (US7257163B2), US10/171,860 (US7088398B1), US10/192,296 (US6914637B1).
  • International (PCT) Applications: PCT/US2002/028809 (WO2003024068A1), PCT/US2002/028804 (WO2003024067A1), PCT/US2002/038755 (WO2003058376A2), PCT/US2002/038948 (WO2003058826A2), PCT/US2002/038766 (WO2003058946A2).
  • Foreign Applications:
    • Canadian: CA002454452A (CA2454452A1), CA002428529A (CA2428529C), CA002428525A (CA2428525C), CA002471536A (CA2471536A1), CA002471541A (CA2471541A1), CA002466463A (CA2466463A1).
    • Korean: KR1020037001442A (KR100552833B1), KR1020037001443A (KR100568950B1), KR1020047009982A (KR100699460B1), KR1020047009984A (KR100699452B1), KR1020047009983A (KR100699469B1).
    • Japanese: JP2003527986A (JP4229836B2), JP2003527985A (JP3851904B2), JP2003558625A (JP4176643B2), JP2003559026A (JP2005514849A), JP2003559136A (JP4309765B2).
    • European: EP02759623A (EP1330910B1), EP02761616A (EP1332602B1), EP02790016.6A (EP1486056B1), EP02795758A (EP1459532A2), EP02791373.0A (EP1459531B1), EP18190927.6A (EP3496349B1).
    • Austrian: AT02761616T (ATE398379T1), AT02759623T (ATE398378T1).
    • German: DE60227044T (DE60227044D1), DE60227042T (DE60227042D1).
• Published Application: US20030048851A1 is the publication of the application for US7359437 itself.
• Child Applications: Based on the provided authoritative patent text, there are no explicitly listed continuation or divisional applications that claim priority from application US10/036,234 (US7359437).

Projected Expiration Date:
The patent's projected and actual expiration date was May 7, 2025. The patent is currently expired.