Extensions

To provide a comprehensive overview of US Patent 9550052, I will detail its patent term adjustments (PTA), patent term extensions (PTE), continuation and divisional applications, related family members, and projected expiration date.

Patent Term Adjustments (PTA)

Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) is granted to compensate patent applicants for delays caused by the USPTO during the prosecution of a utility or plant patent application. This adds time to the standard 20-year patent term from the earliest filing date. Delays that qualify for PTA include the USPTO failing to:

• Issue a first office action or notice of allowance within 14 months of filing.
• Respond to an applicant's reply to an office action within four months.
• Issue the patent within four months of payment of the issue fee.
• Issue a patent within three years of the actual filing date (with certain exceptions for applicant-caused delays).

The USPTO automatically calculates and provides a notice of the PTA period on or before the patent's issuance date. Applicants have two months from the issue date (with possible extensions) to request reconsideration of the PTA calculation.

To determine the specific PTA for US Patent 9550052, a direct search of the USPTO Patent Center for the patent file wrapper would be necessary, as this information is not typically present on the Google Patents overview or in the provided text.

Patent Term Extensions (PTE)

Patent Term Extension (PTE) is a separate mechanism under 35 U.S.C. § 156, primarily designed to restore patent term lost due to regulatory review delays by agencies like the FDA. PTE is available for patents covering human drugs, food or color additives, animal drugs, veterinary biological products, and certain medical devices (specifically Class III devices requiring pre-market approval under section 515 of the FFDCA). The maximum length of a PTE is five years, and it cannot extend the patent term beyond 14 years from the date of marketing approval. Only one patent can receive PTE for a given regulatory review period for a product.

For US Patent 9550052, which relates to a "console system for the treatment of skin," eligibility for PTE would depend on whether the system or a specific product it covers required regulatory approval as a Class III medical device. Without information on FDA approval for a specific product covered by this patent, it cannot be definitively stated whether any PTE was granted or applied for.

Continuation Applications, Divisional Applications, and Related Family Members

The patent text indicates that US9550052B2 is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/267,554, filed Oct. 6, 2011, which itself is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/392,348, filed Mar. 29, 2006. This chain further claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/755,310, filed Dec. 30, 2005, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/764,668, filed Feb. 2, 2006. This establishes a family of related applications.

• Parent Application (Direct): U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/267,554 (filed Oct. 6, 2011)
• Grandparent Application: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/392,348 (filed Mar. 29, 2006)
• Priority Applications (Provisional):
  • U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/755,310 (filed Dec. 30, 2005)
  • U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/764,668 (filed Feb. 2, 2006)

As of January 19, 2025, the USPTO introduced a Continuing Application Fee (CAF) for utility, plant, and design continuing applications filed more than six years after their earliest benefit date, with higher fees for applications filed more than nine years after. This fee is intended to address the backlog of continuing applications.

A patent granted on a continuation or divisional application filed on or after June 8, 1995, will have a term that ends twenty years from the filing date of the earliest application for which a benefit is claimed.

The provided patent text also mentions two additional priority claims for US9550052:

• Priority to US18/094,884 on 2023-01-09, which is associated with patent/US11865287B2/en.
• Priority to US18/487,916 on 2023-10-16, which is associated with patent/US12053607B2/en.
  These are later-filed applications claiming priority from US9550052, indicating they are likely continuation or divisional applications of US9550052 or a subsequent patent in its family.

Projected Expiration Date

The standard term for a U.S. utility patent issued from an application filed on or after June 8, 1995, is 20 years from its earliest effective filing date, excluding any Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) or Patent Term Extension (PTE). US Patent 9550052 claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/755,310, filed on December 30, 2005.

Therefore, the statutory 20-year term would typically run from December 30, 2005.
December 30, 2005 + 20 years = December 30, 2025.

However, the Google Patents information for US9550052 explicitly states "Anticipated expiration: 2026-03-29". This discrepancy suggests that a Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) has been applied to the patent term. PTA is granted to compensate for administrative delays by the USPTO during prosecution.

Thus, the projected expiration date, including any PTA, is March 29, 2026. Without access to the specific PTA calculation from the USPTO file wrapper, the exact details of this adjustment cannot be provided, but the given "Anticipated expiration" date is the authoritative figure.