Extensions

US Patent 7917367 is titled "Systems and methods for responding to natural language speech utterance". It was issued on March 29, 2011, from an application filed on November 12, 2009. The priority date for this patent is August 5, 2005.

Patent Term Adjustments (PTA)

Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) can extend the term of a U.S. patent to compensate for delays by the USPTO during the prosecution of the application. The standard patent term is 20 years from the earliest effective filing date. Delays that can trigger PTA include the USPTO failing to:

• Issue a first Official Action within 14 months of filing.
• Respond to an applicant's reply to an Official Action or appeal within four months.
• Issue the patent within four months of payment of the issue fee.
• Issue a patent within 36 months from the filing date.

Applicant delays can reduce or eliminate PTA. To determine the exact PTA for US 7917367, a detailed review of the patent's prosecution history on the USPTO website would be required, as the granted PTA is typically an addition to the 20-year lifespan. However, without access to the full prosecution history, the specific PTA amount cannot be definitively stated.

Patent Term Extensions (PTE)

Patent Term Extension (PTE) is available for patents claiming products (such as human and veterinary pharmaceuticals, food additives, color additives, and medical devices) that require regulatory approval from agencies like the FDA before commercial marketing. The purpose of PTE is to restore a portion of the patent term lost during this regulatory review period, up to a maximum of five years, and the total patent life with extension cannot exceed 14 years from the product's approval date.

Given the nature of US 7917367, which relates to "Systems and methods for responding to natural language speech utterance" and is not directly tied to a regulated product requiring FDA approval, it is highly unlikely to be eligible for Patent Term Extension under 35 U.S.C. § 156.

Continuation and Divisional Applications

• Continuation Applications: A continuation application shares the same disclosure as its parent but pursues different claims, with no new subject matter added. It must be filed while the parent application is still pending. Filing a continuation from a parent patent can be an implicit admission of obviousness-type double patenting, which may require a terminal disclaimer over the parent patent.
• Divisional Applications: A divisional application is filed when an examiner determines that an application claims two or more independent and distinct inventions and requires restriction. A divisional application benefits from the filing date of the original application.

The provided patent text indicates that US7917367 is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/197,504, which was filed on August 5, 2005, and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,640,160 on December 29, 2009. Therefore, US7917367 is itself a continuation application.

Related Family Members

The patent states: "This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/197,504, entitled 'SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR RESPONDING TO NATURAL LANGUAGE SPEECH UTTERANCE,' filed Aug. 5, 2005, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,640,160 on Dec. 29, 2009, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety."

Therefore, U.S. Pat. No. 7,640,160 (from application Ser. No. 11/197,504) is a direct parent family member of US 7917367. The "Other versions" section of the Google Patents page also lists US20100057443A1 as a publication from the same patent family. [cite: Abstract]

Projected Expiration Date

The standard term for a U.S. utility patent is 20 years from its earliest effective filing date. US 7917367 is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/197,504, which has a filing date of August 5, 2005. This is the earliest effective filing date.

Therefore, the base expiration date would be August 5, 2005 + 20 years = August 5, 2025.

The Google Patents page itself lists the "Anticipated expiration" as 2025-08-05 and the "Legal status" as "Expired - Lifetime". This confirms the calculation based on the earliest priority date, and implies that no significant PTA was granted or that any PTA did not extend the term beyond this date in a way that is currently recognized as valid, or that any PTA has been overcome by terminal disclaimers.

Given the current date of 2026-05-21, and the anticipated expiration date of 2025-08-05, the patent US7917367 is already expired. [cite: Abstract]