US 7669081

US Patent 7669081 Summary:

• Title: Systems and methods for scheduling, processing, and monitoring tasks
• Current Assignee: OL Security LLC
• Inventors: Richard Lett, Gregory Renno, Thomas Terwiel
• Filing Date: 2006-09-27
• Issue Date: 2010-02-23
• Abstract: A computer-implemented method for performing a process is provided. The method comprises: (a) receiving a request to perform a process, the process comprising a plurality of tasks and at least a scheduler rule; (b) receiving a plurality of checkpoints associated with the process, each checkpoint comprising checkpoint state data and at least a respective checkpoint rule governing execution of the process; (c) determining a first task of the plurality of tasks to be scheduled into a priority queue, in accordance with the scheduler rule; (d) determining the first checkpoint of the plurality of checkpoints that is to be the first checkpoint used in processing the first task, in accordance with the scheduler rule; (e) creating the checkpoint state data for the first checkpoint; (f) saving the checkpoint state data for the first checkpoint; (g) processing the first task in accordance with the checkpoint rule associated with the first checkpoint; (h) determining the next task in the plurality of tasks to perform, based on the checkpoint rule associated with the first checkpoint; (i) updating the saved checkpoint data for the first checkpoint with the data and state associated with the first task; and (j) repeating steps (c) through (i) for each subsequent task and checkpoint, in accordance with the respective scheduler and checkpoint rules, until a predetermined condition has been reached.

Plain-language Overview of Independent Claims:

The patent contains three independent claims: Claim 1, Claim 19, and Claim 29.

• Independent Claim 1 (Method for performing a process): This claim describes a computer-implemented method for executing a process composed of multiple tasks and checkpoints. It involves:

  • Receiving a request for a process with tasks and a main scheduler rule.
  • Receiving several checkpoints, each with its own state data and a rule for how the process should run at that checkpoint.
  • Using the main scheduler rule to decide which task to put into a priority queue first.
  • Using the scheduler rule to decide which checkpoint should process the first task.
  • Creating and saving initial data for that first checkpoint.
  • Processing the first task according to the first checkpoint's rule.
  • Based on the first checkpoint's rule, figuring out which task to do next.
  • Updating the saved data for the first checkpoint with the current task's information.
  • Repeating these steps for subsequent tasks and checkpoints, guided by their respective rules, until a predefined stopping point is reached.

• Independent Claim 19 (Method for processing a logical thread): This claim outlines a method for breaking down and managing a logical sequence of operations (a "logical thread"). It involves:

  • Dividing the logical thread into several smaller "processor functions."
  • Representing the state of this logical thread as a "task" that moves between these processor functions, carrying its data and current state.
  • Adding this task to a queue.
  • Saving the task's state at a first "checkpoint."
  • Choosing the first processor function to handle the task based on a specific rule.
  • The first processor function receiving the task, using its data to perform an operation, and storing the results back in the task.
  • Saving the task's state again at a second checkpoint.
  • Choosing a second processor function based on another rule.
  • The second processor function receiving the task and using the output from the first process as its input, if necessary.

• Independent Claim 29 (Computerized system for executing a process): This claim describes a system that uses a computer to run a process. The system includes:

  • Tools (means) for receiving requests to run a business process and sending back responses.
  • Tools for processing these incoming requests based on a set priority.
  • Tools for saving data about the progress of the request at different "checkpoints."
  • Tools for retrieving data from a checkpoint to restart or restore the business process.

USPTO and CAFC 2026 Dockets Search:

The legal status of US7669081 is "Active", and it is set to expire on 2028-01-27.

Regarding litigation, the Google Patents information for US7669081 indicates that the "Family has litigation" and shows several US cases filed in Delaware District Court in 2026. These include cases 1:26-cv-00466, 1:26-cv-00417, 1:26-cv-00397, and 1:26-cv-00392. These cases are sourced from the District Court via Unified Patents Litigation Data.

I could not find specific dockets for US7669081 at the CAFC for 2026 within the provided search results. While the Federal Circuit (CAFC) handles patent appeals, the specific litigation mentioned for US7669081 is at the District Court level in Delaware. Information from Darts-ip and Unified Patents indicates they track patent litigation globally, including CAFC cases, but no direct CAFC dockets for US7669081 in 2026 were explicitly found in the snippets.

Therefore, while litigation is ongoing for this patent in district court in 2026, specific dockets for the CAFC in 2026 related to US7669081 are not explicitly identified in the provided information.

The following litigation involving US patent 7669081 is known as of April 26, 2026:

1. Case Number: 1:26-cv-00392

   • Plaintiff(s): Hartford Fire Insurance Co.
   • Defendant(s): Intellectual Ventures I LLC, Intellectual Ventures II LLC, Callahan Cellular LLC, Zarbana Digital Fund, LLC, OL Security, LLC, and Cufer Asset LTD, LLC
   • Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware
   • Filing Date: April 7, 2026
   • Current Status: Open

2. Case Number: 1:26-cv-00417

   • Plaintiff(s): Munich Re America Services Inc.
   • Defendant(s): Intellectual Ventures (partial information available)
   • Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware
   • Filing Date: April 10, 2026
   • Current Status: Not explicitly stated as "Open," but presumed ongoing due to recent filing date.

3. Case Number: 1:26-cv-00397

   • Plaintiff(s): Travelers Indemnity Co.
   • Defendant(s): Intellectual Ventures I LLC
   • Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware
   • Filing Date: Not explicitly detailed in the provided snippets, but likely around April 2026 given similar case numbering in the same jurisdiction.
   • Current Status: No outcome explicitly stated.

4. Case Number: 1:26-cv-00466

   • Plaintiff(s): Information not explicitly detailed in the provided snippets.
   • Defendant(s): Information not explicitly detailed in the provided snippets.
   • Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.
   • Filing Date: Information not explicitly detailed in the provided snippets, but likely around April 2026 given similar case numbering in the same jurisdiction.
   • Current Status: Information not explicitly detailed in the provided snippets.

These cases appear to be newly filed in April 2026 and involve US patent 7669081. The patent's current assignee, OL Security LLC, is listed as a defendant in at least one of these cases.

Proceedings overview

There is no PTAB activity on file for US Patent 7,669,081.

Strategic summary

As there are no PTAB proceedings on file for US Patent 7,669,081, all claims of the patent remain untested by AIA trial challenges. This means there is no established precedent from the PTAB regarding the patentability of its claims based on prior art or other statutory grounds.

The absence of PTAB activity could signify a few things. It might indicate that the patent has not been extensively asserted or licensed, as well-asserted patents often attract IPRs from accused infringers or defensive aggregators. Alternatively, it could suggest that prior art challenges against this specific patent have not been deemed strong enough to warrant an AIA trial, or that potential challengers have opted for other avenues, such as district court litigation.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant facing assertion of US Patent 7,669,081, the absence of PTAB activity means that all prior art grounds are still available for challenge. You could consider filing an Inter Partes Review (IPR) petition if a strong prior art challenge can be identified against the asserted claims. The lack of previous PTAB review implies that the patent has not been "hardened" by surviving such challenges, potentially offering a more favorable landscape for a new petitioner.

Inventors

• Richard Lett (Raytheon Co)
• Gregory Renno (Raytheon Co)
• Thomas Terwiel (Raytheon Co)

No unusual patterns observed regarding inventor departure from the original assignee.

Original assignee

Raytheon Co. (also identified as RAYTHEON COMPANY). Raytheon is a major U.S. defense contractor, and the patent describes a "Total Ship Computing Environment (TSCE)" developed for the U.S. Navy's DD(X) multi-mission destroyer, indicating they likely shipped products embodying the claims in a military context.
Current status: Operating (Raytheon Technologies, following a merger with United Technologies Corporation).

Assignment timeline

• 2006-09-28 (executed) / recorded 2006-09-28 — Reel 018698/0022

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: LETT, RICHARD; RENNO, GREGORY; TERWIEL, THOMAS
  • Assignee: RAYTHEON COMPANY
  • Correspondent: R. DENNIS CREWS, RAYTHEON COMPANY, 870 WINTER STREET, WALTHAM, MA 02451-1449.
  • Context: Original assignment from inventors to employer.

• 2012-10-12 (executed) / recorded 2012-10-12 — Reel 028972/0150

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: RAYTHEON COMPANY
  • Assignee: OL SECURITY LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY
  • Correspondent: BARRY F. NOONAN, 107 WEST STREET, SUITE 400, C/O RAYTHEON COMPANY, ATTN: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, WALTHAM, MA 02451-1449.
  • Context: Transfer to asserter.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7669081
    2006 : Assigned to Raytheon Co
    2010 : Issued
    2012 : Assigned to OL Security LLC

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — present. The patent was assigned from Raytheon Company, a major operating company, to "OL SECURITY LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY". The name "OL SECURITY LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY" with "LLC" suffix strongly suggests a licensing-only entity. Further, Unified Patents lists OL Security LLC as an NPE.
2. Known asserter in the chain — present. The current assignee, OL Security LLC, is identified as a Non-Practicing Entity (NPE) by Unified Patents.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. Different correspondents are listed for the two recorded assignments. R. DENNIS CREWS for the initial assignment and BARRY F. NOONAN for the assignment to OL Security LLC.
4. Cascading transfers — not present. Only two assignments are recorded, separated by several years.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear. While the transfer to OL Security LLC occurred in 2012, no specific litigation dates are immediately available in the provided text to determine if this transfer was within 6 months of the first suit. However, Google Patents notes "Family has litigation".
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Raytheon Company is an operating company and no bankruptcy filing is indicated.
7. Privateering — unclear. There's no explicit information in the provided text or typical public records to definitively determine if Raytheon transferred the patent to OL Security LLC to assert on its behalf against competitors.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at any known defensive aggregator.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence. The patent was transferred from an operating company (Raytheon Co.) to an entity named "OL SECURITY LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY", which is a strong indicator of a shell entity. This is further supported by OL Security LLC being identified as a known Non-Practicing Entity (NPE) by Unified Patents. The presence of these two strong signals points to an NPE assertion model.

USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search for patent number 7669081).

The following prior art references are identified as relevant to US patent 7,669,081, based on citations within the patent itself. The analysis focuses on how these references potentially anticipate elements of US7669081, particularly its method claims as exemplified by Claim 1.

The core innovative aspects of US7669081, as summarized in its abstract and further detailed in its description, include:

• Application-level task scheduling with priority queues.
• The use of "checkpoints" (also referred to as processor functions) that include state data and governing rules.
• Rule-based determination of the next task and checkpoint in a process flow.
• Saving and updating checkpoint state data for recovery purposes.
• Recovery mechanisms for failed tasks/processes.

Here are some of the most relevant prior art references:

1. US6546401B1 - Methods and systems for performing a recoverable, persistent process

• Full Citation: US6546401B1, "Methods and systems for performing a recoverable, persistent process," invented by Michael T. Gering et al., assigned to Objectware, Inc., published April 8, 2003.
• Publication/Filing Date: Filed October 30, 2000; Published April 8, 2003.
• Brief Description: This patent describes methods and systems for executing a recoverable, persistent process. It involves dividing a process into a sequence of recoverable units, defining intermediate states for these units, and persisting data related to these states to allow recovery from failure. The system ensures that a process can resume from a last known good state, typically through a persistence mechanism.
• Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): This reference potentially anticipates elements of Claim 1 of US7669081, particularly steps (b), (e), (f), and (i), which relate to receiving checkpoints (recoverable units), creating and saving checkpoint state data, and updating this data. The concept of a "recoverable, persistent process" directly aligns with the checkpointing and recovery features of US7669081.

2. US6041355A - Method and apparatus for processing events and tasks in a transaction-oriented system

• Full Citation: US6041355A, "Method and apparatus for processing events and tasks in a transaction-oriented system," invented by Peter R. Broadbent et al., assigned to Tandem Computers Incorporated, published March 21, 2000.
• Publication/Filing Date: Filed December 18, 1996; Published March 21, 2000.
• Brief Description: This patent details a transaction-oriented system that processes events and tasks. It includes a task scheduler and a task dispatcher that manage tasks in a queue, allowing for concurrent processing. The system focuses on maintaining data consistency in a distributed environment through transactional integrity.
• Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): This reference potentially anticipates aspects of Claim 1 of US7669081, specifically steps (a) and (c) regarding receiving requests (events) and scheduling tasks into a queue for processing. While it focuses on transaction-oriented systems, the underlying mechanism of task processing and scheduling in queues presents similar foundational concepts.

3. US6854108B1 - Application checkpoint/restart for highly available systems

• Full Citation: US6854108B1, "Application checkpoint/restart for highly available systems," invented by Madhusudan T. Talluri et al., assigned to BEA Systems, Inc., published February 8, 2005.
• Publication/Filing Date: Filed May 2, 2002; Published February 8, 2005.
• Brief Description: This patent describes a system and method for providing application checkpoint/restart capabilities in highly available systems. It involves saving the state of an application at various points (checkpoints) to persistent storage, enabling the application to be restarted from a recent checkpoint in case of failure. The checkpoints allow for rollback and recovery of application execution.
• Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): This patent directly addresses "application checkpoint/restart," which is a central theme in US7669081. It potentially anticipates Claim 1, particularly steps (b), (e), (f), and (i) concerning the establishment, creation, saving, and updating of checkpoint state data for recovery. The emphasis on application-level recovery is particularly relevant.

4. US6718544B1 - Application-level system and method for recovering from application failures

• Full Citation: US6718544B1, "Application-level system and method for recovering from application failures," invented by Robert J. Collingbourne et al., assigned to Electronic Data Systems Corporation, published April 6, 2004.
• Publication/Filing Date: Filed October 31, 2000; Published April 6, 2004.
• Brief Description: This patent describes a system and method for recovering from application failures by maintaining and updating application state information. It enables an application to be restarted from a previous valid state, preventing loss of work. The recovery is handled at the application level, providing more granular control than traditional operating system-level recovery.
• Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Similar to US6854108B1, this patent explicitly focuses on "application-level" recovery from failures, a key distinction highlighted by US7669081 over prior OS-level schedulers. It potentially anticipates Claim 1, specifically steps (b), (e), (f), and (i) by disclosing mechanisms for saving and using application state for recovery, and the underlying concept of structured recovery points.

5. US6877148B1 - Method and system for dynamically generating a process flow

• Full Citation: US6877148B1, "Method and system for dynamically generating a process flow," invented by David F. Hemsath et al., assigned to International Business Machines Corporation, published April 5, 2005.
• Publication/Filing Date: Filed June 28, 2001; Published April 5, 2005.
• Brief Description: This patent describes a method and system for dynamically generating a process flow based on user-defined rules. It allows for flexible and adaptive process execution where the sequence of steps can be determined at runtime based on various conditions.
• Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): This reference is relevant to US7669081's emphasis on rule-based execution flow. It potentially anticipates Claim 1, specifically steps (a), (d), and (h), which involve using scheduler rules and checkpoint rules to determine tasks to be scheduled and the next steps in the process. The "dynamically generating a process flow" based on rules aligns with the decision-making logic embedded in the rules of US7669081's checkpoints.

For a US patent to be considered obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art must be such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the subject matter pertains. This analysis often involves combining elements from multiple prior art references, provided there is a motivation to do so.

Here's an analysis of the obviousness of US Patent 7,669,081, focusing on potential combinations of prior art:

Overview of US7669081's Core Innovations

US7669081 primarily focuses on a software architectural framework for application-level task scheduling, processing, and monitoring, particularly in scalable and configurable environments. Key aspects include:

• Application-level scheduling: Providing scheduling capabilities beyond the operating system level, allowing developers to define task flow and conditions.
• Processor functions and tasks: Breaking down logical threads into reusable "processor functions" and modeling the state as a "task" passed between them.
• Rule-based task flow: Using developer-provided rules (strategy patterns) to dictate the selection of the next processor function and control task flow, including conditional branching and revisiting checkpoints.
• Priority queues and threading: Utilizing multiple priority queues, with each queue and processor function having its own thread, and allowing for high-priority task interruption.
• Persistence and recovery: Saving task state data at user/developer-defined checkpoints (before and after processor functions) to persistent storage for robust recovery and failover.
• Health monitoring: Monitoring the health of threads and SCI components, with mechanisms for reporting degraded health, restarting threads, or taking other corrective actions.
• Open Architecture (OA) and TSCE context: Although not limiting, the patent highlights its applicability within an OA environment like the U.S. Navy's Total Ship Computing Environment (TSCE).

Prior Art Landscape

The provided patent text and search results indicate a prior art landscape where:

• Operating system-level schedulers like Unix cron were common but had limitations. cron could handle simple, time-dependent scheduling, but struggled with non-time-dependent conditions, connecting job execution with results of other jobs, or conditional flow changes.
• Mainframe job schedulers offered more features than Unix cron, including some non-time-based triggering (e.g., database shutdown).
• Open Architecture (OA) systems were known and sought after in various industries, including military applications like the U.S. Navy's TSCE, to overcome limitations of "closed" or "stovepiped" systems. TSCE itself aimed to provide a scalable platform for mission capability and utilized an open system architecture.
• Concepts of fault tolerance and recovery were recognized, including creating "restore points" or "snapshots" to save the state of a computer system for later recovery.
• Monitoring application performance in distributed real-time systems was a known concern, especially in defense systems where task functions not getting sufficient resources or being late could lead to life-threatening situations. Open interfaces for measuring performance and dynamically adapting application behaviors were being designed.

Obviousness Combinations

Given this context, a person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA) in 2006, when US7669081 was filed, would likely have been motivated to combine existing technologies to address known limitations in task scheduling, particularly for complex, mission-critical applications within open architectural frameworks.

Combination 1: Unix cron / Mainframe Schedulers + Application-level logic + Fault Tolerance/Recovery

References: Unix cron (explicitly mentioned as prior art limitations in US7669081), Mainframe job schedulers (explicitly mentioned), general knowledge of fault tolerance/recovery systems (explicitly mentioned in US7669081).

Motivation to combine:
The patent itself acknowledges the shortcomings of existing operating system-level schedulers like Unix cron (e.g., inability to handle non-time-dependent conditions or conditional job flow) and mainframe schedulers (which, while better, still operate at the OS level). A PHOSITA would be motivated to overcome these limitations, especially for complex applications where more granular control and dynamic flow based on application-specific conditions are needed. The desire to "save the state of an application or a high level process at user/developer defined points" to improve recovery and failover was a recognized need that existing systems did not adequately address.

Explanation of Obviousness:

• Application-level scheduling and rule-based flow: Given the limitations of OS-level schedulers, it would be obvious to move scheduling logic closer to the application to enable more sophisticated, conditional control. The concept of using "rules" or "strategy patterns" to govern program flow based on data or conditions is a fundamental aspect of software design. Applying such rules to task scheduling, allowing a developer to define how a "logical thread" progresses through "processor functions" based on internal data or external events (as opposed to just time), would be an obvious step for a PHOSITA seeking to build more flexible and robust application workflows.
• Persistence and recovery at checkpoints: The idea of "restore points" or "snapshots" for system recovery was known. Extending this concept to application-level "checkpoints" within a multi-task process, especially when those tasks are broken into discrete "processor functions," would be an obvious design choice to enhance application resilience. Saving the state data at these defined checkpoints, particularly at the beginning and end of processing steps, would directly address the need for recovering from application failures, as discussed in the background of US7669081. This is a predictable variation using known techniques to achieve a desired outcome.

Combination 2: Total Ship Computing Environment (TSCE) + Advanced Scheduling/Monitoring Capabilities

References: Total Ship Computing Environment (TSCE) / TSCE-I (explicitly mentioned in US7669081 as the environment for the invention), general knowledge of application performance monitoring in distributed systems (e.g., N04-223 - Navy SBIR).

Motivation to combine:
The TSCE was a large-scale open architecture system designed to integrate various shipboard computing applications and provide a scalable platform for new mission capabilities, emphasizing reliability, scalability, and availability. The need for robust performance measurement and recovery in such mission-critical, distributed real-time environments was well-established, as evidenced by Navy SBIR topics related to TSCE-I seeking open interfaces for measuring application performance and enabling reactions/recovery. A PHOSITA working on TSCE would be highly motivated to implement advanced scheduling, monitoring, and recovery mechanisms to ensure the stability and continuity of its complex applications.

Explanation of Obviousness:

• Adapting existing concepts to TSCE: While US7669081 describes its invention in the context of TSCE, the core scheduling, checkpointing, and recovery mechanisms are presented as general improvements. A PHOSITA would find it obvious to apply known techniques for robust task management, persistence, and recovery (as identified in Combination 1) to a large-scale, open architecture like TSCE. The distributed nature of TSCE, with services joining and leaving dynamically and the ability to move services upon failure, would make the need for application-level state persistence and controlled task flow even more apparent.
• Thread monitoring and health: The Navy SBIR topic N04-223 explicitly discusses the need for open interfaces to measure application performance and "react/recover otherwise" if requirements are not met, particularly in life-threatening situations within defense systems. This directly implies the need for health monitoring of application components (like threads) and mechanisms to respond to issues. Therefore, implementing thread-level health monitoring, reporting, and recovery (e.g., restarting unhealthy threads) within an application scheduler for a system like TSCE would be an obvious engineering choice for a PHOSITA.

Conclusion on Obviousness

The core advancements of US7669081, such as application-level scheduling with rule-based task flow, granular checkpointing for recovery, and thread-level health monitoring, represent logical evolutions and combinations of existing concepts in software engineering and distributed systems. While the patent describes these features in a specific, integrated framework, the individual components and the motivation to combine them to solve known problems (limitations of OS-level schedulers, need for application-specific recovery, and robust operation in complex environments like TSCE) would likely have been apparent to a PHOSITA at the time of the invention. The invention appears to be a predictable aggregation of known elements, each performing its accustomed function, to achieve a more reliable and flexible application-level task management system.

Patent Term Adjustments (PTA) for US7669081

Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) extends the term of a U.S. patent to compensate for certain delays caused by the USPTO during the patent application's prosecution. The overall PTA calculation involves adding various delays by the USPTO and subtracting delays caused by the applicant.

The Google Patents page for US7669081 indicates that the "Legal status" is "Active, expires 2028-01-27". This adjusted expiration date implies that PTA has likely been applied to the patent. Without direct access to the patent's prosecution history (e.g., the Image File Wrapper in Patent Center), the specific details of any PTA calculation (e.g., the exact number of days added due to USPTO delays or subtracted due to applicant delays) cannot be determined from the provided information.

Key aspects of PTA relevant to this patent include:

• The original patent term is 20 years from the filing date of the non-provisional application.
• PTA applies to utility patent applications filed on or after May 29, 2000. US7669081 was filed on September 27, 2006, making it eligible for PTA.
• Delays by the USPTO that can lead to PTA include:
  • Failure to issue a first Official Action within 14 months of filing.
  • Failure to issue an action within four months of an applicant's response.
  • Failure to issue the patent within four months of payment of the issue fee.
  • Failure to issue a patent within three years of the actual filing date.
• Applicant delays can reduce any PTA.

The adjusted expiration date of January 27, 2028, for US7669081 suggests that a positive PTA was granted, extending its term beyond the typical 20 years from its September 27, 2006, filing date (which would have been September 27, 2026).

Patent Term Extensions (PTE) for US7669081

Patent Term Extension (PTE) is available for patents claiming certain human drug products, medical device products, animal drug products, veterinary biological products, and food or color additive products, to restore time lost during premarket government approval by a regulatory agency (e.g., FDA).

The description of US7669081 as a "Systems and methods for scheduling, processing, and monitoring tasks" for computer hardware and software, especially within military applications like the U.S. Navy's Total Ship Computing Environment (TSCE), does not align with the types of products eligible for PTE under 35 U.S.C. § 156. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that US7669081 has received or is eligible for Patent Term Extension.

Continuation Applications, Divisional Applications, and Related Family Members of US7669081

The Google Patents page provides information on "Other versions" and "Priority to US11/535,723".

• Application number: US11/535,723. This is the application number for US7669081 itself.
• Other versions: US20080120620A1. This is the published patent application corresponding to US7669081. This is a family member, specifically the pre-grant publication of the granted patent.
• Family has litigation: The Google Patents page also indicates "Family has litigation", and lists the priority to US11/535,723.

Based on the provided information, the following can be stated:

• Continuation Applications: The provided information does not explicitly list any continuation applications for US7669081. Continuation applications typically share the same priority date and specification but claim different subject matter.
• Divisional Applications: Similarly, no divisional applications are explicitly listed. Divisional applications arise when an application contains more than one independent and distinct invention, and the applicant elects to pursue one invention in the original application and others in divisional applications.
• Related Family Members:
  • US20080120620A1: This is the patent application publication associated with US7669081B2. It shares the same specification and priority date.

To definitively identify all continuation or divisional applications, a more in-depth search using patent databases (e.g., USPTO Patent Center with the application number US11/535,723) would typically be required to examine the "Continuity Data" section. However, based solely on the provided snippets, only the pre-grant publication is clearly identified as a related family member.

Projected Expiration Date for US7669081

The Google Patents page explicitly states the legal status as "Active, expires 2028-01-27". This is the projected expiration date, which already accounts for any Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) that may have been applied.

Therefore, the projected expiration date for US Patent 7669081 is January 27, 2028.