Extensions

To determine the patent term adjustments (PTA), patent term extensions (PTE), continuation applications, divisional applications, related family members, and the projected expiration date for US patent 7606156, I will use information directly from the USPTO and general patent law principles.

Patent Term Adjustments (PTA):
Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) extends a patent's term to compensate for certain delays caused by the USPTO during the prosecution of a utility or plant patent application. This adjustment is added to the standard 20-year patent term (from the earliest filing date). The USPTO's system automatically calculates PTA, which is typically noted on the patent's issue notification. Without direct access to the official USPTO file wrapper for patent 7606156, the exact PTA cannot be definitively stated.

Patent Term Extensions (PTE):
Patent Term Extension (PTE) is available for patents on certain human drugs, food or color additives, medical devices, animal drugs, and veterinary biological products. It aims to restore some of the patent term lost due to delays in premarket government approval from regulatory agencies like the FDA. Based on the nature of US patent 7606156, which describes a "Residential Communications Gateway," it does not fall into the categories of products eligible for PTE. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that US7606156 has received any patent term extensions.

Continuation and Divisional Applications:

• A continuation application allows an applicant to pursue claims based on the same specification and drawings as a previously filed "parent" application, provided the parent application is still pending. It typically contains new claims but shares the same priority date as the parent.
• A divisional application is filed when an applicant wants to pursue claims that were originally presented in a parent application but were required by the USPTO to be withdrawn or canceled due to unity of invention rules. A divisional application also shares the same priority date as the parent.

To identify specific continuation or divisional applications for US patent 7606156, one would typically examine the "Related U.S. Application Data" section on the front page of the patent or search the patent family in a USPTO database. The provided patent text for US7606156 indicates: "This first non-provisional patent applications makes claim to the Provisional Application for patent filed Oct. 15, 2002 and titled Residential Communications Gateway, of the same inventorship and with the express mail label no EF 100339383 US." This confirms a priority claim to a provisional application (filed 2002-10-15), but it doesn't explicitly list subsequent continuation or divisional applications. However, Google Patents lists a "priority to US10/686,375" on 2003-10-14, which is the filing date of US7606156, and then several additional priority claims: "priority to US12/581,852" on 2009-10-19, "priority to US13/531,294" on 2012-06-22, "priority to US14/512,414" on 2014-10-11, "priority to US15/161,787" on 2016-05-23, "priority to US17/120,549" on 2020-12-14, and "priority to US17/887,922" on 2022-08-15. These subsequent priority claims indicate the presence of continuing applications in the patent family.

Related Family Members:
The patent family includes US20050078690A1 (an earlier publication of the same application as US7606156B2). Additionally, the listed priority claims to subsequent applications (US12/581,852, US13/531,294, US14/512,414, US15/161,787, US17/120,549, US17/887,922) indicate that these are likely related utility patent applications, such as continuations or divisional applications, that share a common priority to the original filing of US7606156 (or its underlying provisional application).

Projected Expiration Date:
For U.S. utility patents filed on or after June 8, 1995, the patent term generally expires 20 years from the earliest filing date of the application (or the earliest non-provisional application in a chain of priority).

• Earliest non-provisional filing date: October 14, 2003 (for US10/686,375, which became US7606156).
• Base patent term: 20 years from October 14, 2003 = October 14, 2023.

However, Google Patents indicates the patent's legal status as "Active, expires 2026-10-17". This discrepancy suggests that there has been a Patent Term Adjustment (PTA). PTA is added to the 20-year term to compensate for USPTO delays.

Therefore, the projected expiration date for US patent 7606156 is October 17, 2026, which includes an adjustment likely due to USPTO delays during prosecution.