Extensions

The USPTO database indicates that US Patent 8031223 (B2) expired on July 24, 2023, due to "Expired - Fee Related".

Regarding other patent term specifics:

• Patent Term Adjustments (PTA): Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) is granted to compensate for delays caused by the USPTO during the prosecution of a patent application. It adds time to the standard 20-year patent term from the earliest filing date. The Google Patents page for US8031223B2 explicitly lists "Adjusted expiration" as 2023-07-24, indicating that any PTA was already incorporated into this date. No specific breakdown of the PTA calculation is provided on the Google Patents page, but the USPTO automatically determines and notifies applicants of PTA no later than the patent issuance date.

• Patent Term Extensions (PTE): Patent Term Extensions (PTE) are available for patents on certain regulated products, such as human drugs, food/color additives, medical devices, animal drugs, and veterinary biological products, to restore time lost during premarket government approval from a regulatory agency like the FDA. Since US Patent 8031223 is titled "Virtual reality camera" and relates to image capture and processing, it does not fall under the categories of products eligible for PTE. Therefore, no PTE would have been granted for this patent.

• Continuation Applications: A continuation application is a subsequent application filed while an earlier non-provisional application is still pending, claiming the same invention. It allows an applicant to continue prosecution of claims not allowed in the parent application, but the continuation application does not add new subject matter. The Google Patents page for US8031223B2 lists "US11/515,498" as the application number and states "This is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/378,398, filed Aug. 20, 1999 now U.S. Pat. No. 7,292,261." This confirms that US8031223 is itself a continuation application of U.S. Patent No. 7,292,261.

• Divisional Applications: A divisional application is filed when the USPTO determines that an application contains more than one independent and distinct invention, issuing a restriction requirement. The applicant can then file a divisional application to pursue the non-elected invention(s) from the original application. The provided information does not explicitly state that US8031223 is a divisional application, nor does it list any divisional applications directly stemming from US8031223.

• Related Family Members:

  • Parent Application: U.S. Patent No. 7,292,261 (from which US8031223 is a continuation).
  • Publication: US20070109398A1 is listed as another version, which is the publication of the application that led to US8031223.
  • Priority to US13/220,579: The patent also claims priority to US13/220,579 (which resulted in US9961264B2) filed on August 29, 2011, indicating a further related application.

• Projected Expiration Date: The Google Patents page for US8031223B2 explicitly states the "Adjusted expiration" date as July 24, 2023. The legal status is also listed as "Expired - Fee Related" as of this date. Therefore, the patent is no longer in force.