Extensions

As a senior US patent analyst, I have analyzed the status and history of US Patent 8,069,073. Here are the details regarding its term, related applications, and family members.

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Patent Term and Expiration

• Filing Date: April 5, 2010
• Issue Date: November 29, 2011
• Statutory Term: The patent was filed after June 8, 1995, so its term is 20 years from the earliest non-provisional filing date in its continuity chain.
• Earliest Priority Date: The continuity data reveals that this patent is part of a long chain of continuing applications and claims the benefit of a provisional application filed on December 23, 1999. This is the critical date for calculating the 20-year term.

Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) / Extension (PTE)

• Patent Term Adjustment (PTA): A review of the patent's file history indicates that there were no Patent Term Adjustments granted by the USPTO. PTA is intended to compensate for delays caused by the USPTO during prosecution, and no such adjustments were calculated for this patent.
• Patent Term Extension (PTE): There are no Patent Term Extensions indicated for this patent. PTE is typically granted for delays caused by regulatory review (e.g., by the FDA) and is not applicable here.

Projected Expiration Date

• Calculation: The 20-year term is calculated from the earliest priority date of December 23, 1999.
• Expiration: 20 years from December 23, 1999, is December 23, 2019.
• Current Status (as of May 6, 2026): This patent is expired. Its legal status on Google Patents is correctly listed as "Expired - Fee Related," suggesting that even if it had not reached its full term, it might have expired earlier due to non-payment of maintenance fees.

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Continuity and Related Applications

US Patent 8,069,073 is a continuation of a series of prior applications. Tracing this lineage is crucial for understanding its priority date and relationship to other patents in the family.

• Direct Parent Application:

  • This patent is a continuation of application Ser. No. 11/711,249 (filed Feb. 27, 2007), which is now US Patent 7,725,356.

• Upstream Parent Applications (Genealogy):

  • Application Ser. No. 11/711,249 is a continuation of Ser. No. 11/171,082 (filed Jun. 29, 2005), now US Patent 7,184,968.
  • Application Ser. No. 11/171,082 is a continuation of Ser. No. 09/538,556 (filed Mar. 29, 2000), now US Patent 6,915,269.
  • Application Ser. No. 09/538,556 claims the benefit of Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/173,259, filed on December 23, 1999.

This chain of continuation applications establishes the earliest effective filing date used for term calculation. There are no divisional applications noted in the provided patent text.

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Patent Family Members

The patent family includes the various U.S. patents that are linked through the continuity data described above.

• US Patent 6,915,269: Issued from the first non-provisional application in the chain.
• US Patent 7,184,968: A continuation of the '269 patent.
• US Patent 7,725,356: A continuation of the '968 patent.
• US Patent 8,170,898: Another member of the family, filed as a continuation of the same parent application as the '073 patent.
• US Publication No. 2010/0191664 A1: The publication of the application that matured into the '073 patent.

A search for foreign counterparts or a PCT application from the original priority document did not reveal any direct international family members related to this specific chain. The inventive activity appears to have been prosecuted solely within the United States.