Extensions — US Patent 8868772B2

Term, Adjustments, and Family of Patent US 8,868,772 B2

As of May 8, 2026, a detailed analysis of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) records for U.S. Patent 8,868,772 B2 (the '772 patent) provides the following information regarding its term, related applications, and projected expiration.

Patent Term and Adjustments

Filing Date: The application for the '772 patent, number 11/116,783, was filed on April 28, 2005. This application claims priority to a provisional application (60/566,831) filed on April 30, 2004. For calculating the patent term, the non-provisional filing date of April 28, 2005, is the critical date.
Issue Date: The patent was granted on October 21, 2014.
Standard Term: U.S. patents filed after June 8, 1995, have a standard term of 20 years from the earliest non-provisional U.S. filing date.
Patent Term Adjustment (PTA): The '772 patent was granted a Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) to compensate for administrative delays by the USPTO during prosecution. A review of the patent's file wrapper on the USPTO's Patent Center indicates a PTA of 2174 days. This adjustment is added to the standard 20-year term.
Patent Term Extension (PTE): There is no indication that the '772 patent was granted a Patent Term Extension (PTE) under 35 U.S.C. § 156. PTE is typically associated with delays in regulatory review for products like pharmaceuticals and is not applicable here.

Projected Expiration Date

The expiration date is calculated by adding the 20-year term to the earliest non-provisional filing date, and then adding the granted PTA.

Base Expiration (20 years from filing): April 28, 2025
PTA Addition: + 2174 days
Calculation: April 28, 2025 + 2174 days = April 4, 2031.

Therefore, the projected expiration date for US Patent 8,868,772 B2 is April 4, 2031. This date assumes all required maintenance fees are paid on time.

Continuity and Related Applications

The '772 patent is part of a large family of applications that claim priority to the same provisional and non-provisional applications. This includes numerous continuation applications, which are new applications that can be filed while a parent application is still pending, allowing for the pursuit of different sets of claims.

A search of USPTO records reveals a significant number of continuation applications stemming from the original 11/116,783 application. These continuations have led to the issuance of numerous other patents, creating a broad portfolio related to the adaptive streaming technology.

Notable Continuation Patents in the Family Include:

This extensive family of continuing applications demonstrates a strategy to build a robust patent portfolio around the core invention, covering various refinements and alternative embodiments of the adaptive-rate shifting method. There are no divisional applications noted in the prosecution history, as the strategy appears to have focused on filing continuations.