Extensions

To provide a comprehensive analysis of US Patent 9730443, I will access the official records from the USPTO.

US Patent 9,730,443 - Patent Term, Related Applications, and Expiration

1. Patent Term Adjustment (PTA):
Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) is granted to compensate for certain administrative delays by the USPTO during the prosecution of a patent application. It adds days to the 20-year term of a patent. The specific amount of PTA for US Patent 9,730,443 would be indicated in the Issue Notification Letter issued by the USPTO and on the patent document itself. Without direct access to the official USPTO file wrapper for this specific patent, the exact PTA cannot be definitively stated.

2. Patent Term Extension (PTE):
Patent Term Extension (PTE) is available under the Hatch-Waxman Act (35 U.S.C. § 156) for patents claiming certain products (e.g., human drugs, medical devices, food or color additives, animal drugs) that require premarket regulatory approval. PTE aims to restore patent term lost due to the regulatory approval process. Whether US Patent 9,730,443 has been granted any PTE would depend on whether its claims cover a product subject to such regulatory review and if an application for PTE was filed and approved. Without specific information from the USPTO's official records regarding a PTE application for this patent, no PTE is currently known.

3. Continuation Applications:
A continuation application contains the same specification (description and drawings) as its parent application but includes new or revised claims. It must be filed while the parent application is still pending. US Patent 9,730,443 does not list any continuation applications.

4. Divisional Applications:
A divisional application is filed when an earlier application claimed more than one invention, and the USPTO required the applicant to choose one invention for examination (a "restriction requirement"). The other, "divided-out" inventions can be pursued in divisional applications. US Patent 9,730,443 is explicitly identified in its "CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS" section as a divisional application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/019,296, filed on September 5, 2013, which itself is a divisional of prior application Ser. No. 13/065,553, filed on March 24, 2011 (now U.S. Pat. No. 8,546,449).

5. Related Family Members:
Based on the "CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS" section, the direct related family members (U.S. applications) are:

• U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/019,296 (filed September 5, 2013)
• U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/065,553 (filed March 24, 2011), which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 8,546,449.

Additionally, the Google Patents page for US9730443B2 lists "Other versions" including US20160183523A1, which is a published patent application within the same family. Patent families link patent documents that cover the same invention and share a common priority date.

6. Projected Expiration Date:
For U.S. utility patents filed on or after June 8, 1995, the patent term generally expires 20 years from the earliest filing date of the application, taking into account any priority claims.

• The earliest priority date for US Patent 9,730,443 is March 24, 2011, from its grandparent application, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/065,553.
• Therefore, the base patent term would be 20 years from March 24, 2011.
• Base Expiration Date: March 24, 2031.

This date is subject to any Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) days added (due to USPTO delays) or any Patent Term Extension (PTE) days (due to regulatory review periods), as well as any terminal disclaimers. Without the specific PTA amount and confirmation of no PTE or terminal disclaimers, the precise expiration date cannot be definitively calculated. However, the anticipated expiration date without such adjustments is March 24, 2031.