Extensions

Patent Term Adjustments (PTA) and Patent Term Extensions (PTE)

The Google Patents entry for US8468464 states the legal status as "Expired - Fee Related," with an "Anticipated expiration" date of April 30, 2022. This suggests that while a standard term of 20 years from the earliest filing date is generally applied to utility patents filed on or after June 8, 1995, the patent ultimately expired due to unpaid maintenance fees rather than reaching its full potential term.

The patent document itself (US8468464B2) includes a "RELATED APPLICATIONS" section in its description: "This application is a continuation, and claims the priority, of application Ser. No. 11/199,843, filed Aug. 8, 2005, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 10/136,845 filed Apr. 30, 2002, now abandoned, which claims the priority of provisional application No. 60/287,339, filed Apr. 30, 2001. The entire disclosures of these applications are incorporated herein by reference."

Based on this, the earliest priority date for US8468464 is April 30, 2001, from provisional application No. 60/287,339. For applications filed on or after June 8, 1995, the patent term is generally 20 years from the date of the earliest related application. Therefore, a baseline expiration date, without considering any adjustments or extensions, would be April 30, 2021.

However, the Google Patents entry lists an "Anticipated expiration" of April 30, 2022. This one-year difference suggests that Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) was applied to compensate for delays in prosecution by the USPTO. Specific details of the PTA calculation (e.g., "A," "B," or "C" delays) are typically found in the Issue Notification Letter, which is not available in the provided patent text.

There is no indication of Patent Term Extension (PTE) for US8468464. PTEs are generally granted to compensate for regulatory review periods for certain products, such as pharmaceuticals, and are not broadly applicable to all patents.

Continuation and Divisional Applications

The patent explicitly states it is a "continuation, and claims the priority, of application Ser. No. 11/199,843, filed Aug. 8, 2005, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 10/136,845 filed Apr. 30, 2002, now abandoned, which claims the priority of provisional application No. 60/287,339, filed Apr. 30, 2001."

This indicates a clear chain of related applications:

• Provisional Application No. 60/287,339 filed April 30, 2001 (parent of 10/136,845)
• Application Ser. No. 10/136,845 filed April 30, 2002 (parent of 11/199,843, now abandoned)
• Application Ser. No. 11/199,843 filed August 8, 2005 (parent of US12/474,850, which led to US8468464)
• Application Ser. No. 12/474,850 filed May 29, 2009 (the application from which US8468464 issued)

This chain includes two continuation applications. A continuation application pursues additional claims to an invention disclosed in an earlier, still-pending application, using the same specification and claiming priority from the parent's filing date. There is no explicit mention of divisional applications or continuation-in-part (CIP) applications within this direct chain for US8468464. A CIP application adds new subject matter not disclosed in the parent application, while a divisional application typically arises when an examiner finds multiple independent inventions in a single application.

Related Family Members

The patent text itself, in the "RELATED APPLICATIONS" section, identifies the immediate family members by priority claim:

• US Provisional Application No. 60/287,339, filed Apr. 30, 2001
• US Application Ser. No. 10/136,845, filed Apr. 30, 2002 (now abandoned)
• US Application Ser. No. 11/199,843, filed Aug. 8, 2005
• US Application Ser. No. 12/474,850, filed May 29, 2009 (the application for US8468464)

The Google Patents page for US8468464 also lists "Other versions" and "Priority to" dates which indicate other related applications within the patent family:

• US20100138796A1 (published 2010-06-03), which is the publication of US12/474,850.
• Priority to US13/040,910 (filed 2011-03-04) [cited in the Google Patents sidebar, though not detailed in the text].
• Priority to US13/040,881 (filed 2011-03-04) [cited in the Google Patents sidebar, though not detailed in the text].
• Priority to US13/965,450 (filed 2013-08-13) [cited in the Google Patents sidebar, leading to US9570047B2].
• Priority to US15/390,776 (filed 2016-12-27) [cited in the Google Patents sidebar, leading to US10365795B2].
• Priority to US15/429,359 (filed 2017-02-10) [cited in the Google Patents sidebar, leading to US10444943B2].
• Priority to US16/516,215 (filed 2019-07-18) [cited in the Google Patents sidebar, leading to US10908782B2].

These additional priority claims suggest a complex patent family with multiple continuation or divisional applications stemming from the initial priority chain, indicating ongoing development and protection of the invention.

Projected Expiration Date

The "Legal status" section on Google Patents explicitly states "Expired - Fee Related" and "Anticipated expiration 2022-04-30". While the baseline expiration from the earliest priority date (April 30, 2001) plus 20 years would be April 30, 2021, the "Anticipated expiration" date of April 30, 2022, indicates a Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) of one year.

Therefore, the projected expiration date (if maintenance fees had been paid) was April 30, 2022. However, the patent's current status is "Expired - Fee Related," meaning it has already ceased to be in force due to the failure to pay required maintenance fees.