Extensions

For US Patent 7,969,880, here's a breakdown of its term adjustments, family members, and projected expiration:

Patent Term Adjustments (PTA)

Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) is granted to compensate for certain delays by the USPTO during the prosecution of a patent application. The total PTA is added to the standard 20-year patent term. This patent received a PTA because it failed to issue within three years of its actual filing date. The USPTO calculates the PTA at the time the patent issues and includes it in the Issue Notification Letter.

Based on the information available, the patent US7969880B2 has an adjusted expiration date of April 26, 2029.

Patent Term Extensions (PTE)

Patent Term Extension (PTE) is distinct from PTA and is typically available for patents claiming products (like certain human drugs, food additives, medical devices, or animal drugs) that require premarket government approval from a regulatory agency, such as the FDA. PTE aims to restore a portion of the patent term lost while awaiting such regulatory approval.

There is no indication that US Patent 7,969,880 has received or is eligible for Patent Term Extension under 35 U.S.C. § 156. The subject matter of the patent, relating to network packet relaying, does not fall into the categories for which PTE is typically granted.

Continuation and Divisional Applications

• Continuation Applications: A continuation application allows an applicant to pursue additional claims based on the same specification and drawings as a previously filed "parent" application, while retaining the earlier priority date. There are strategic motivations for filing continuations, such as pursuing different claim scopes or keeping the patent family "alive" even after the parent patent issues.
• Divisional Applications: A divisional application is a type of continuing application filed when the USPTO has identified more than one distinct invention in the initial patent application, typically through a Restriction Requirement. It allows the applicant to pursue claims directed to the unselected inventions from the original application.

US Patent 7,969,880 claims priority to US13/169,363, which was filed on June 27, 2011. This indicates that US13/169,363 is a continuation or divisional application of US Patent 7,969,880.

Related Family Members

The patent explicitly states that the present application claims priority based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2006-219455, filed on August 11, 2006. This Japanese application is a foreign priority family member.

Additionally, as noted above, US20080037544A1 is an earlier publication of this patent. The patent also lists US8625423B2 as a priority to US13/169,363.

Projected Expiration Date

The legal status of US Patent 7,969,880 is "Active" and its adjusted expiration date is April 26, 2029.

The general rule for U.S. utility patents filed on or after June 8, 1995, is that they expire 20 years from the earliest filing date of the application, with any applicable patent term adjustments added. The filing date of US Patent 7,969,880 was July 31, 2007. However, it claims priority to a Japanese application filed on August 11, 2006. The adjusted expiration date of April 26, 2029, takes into account the original 20-year term from the earliest priority date and any PTA.