Most of the Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) cases being filed in
the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
involve patents issuing from applications in which a Request for
Continued Examination (RCE) was filed, and cite the November 1,
2012 decision of Judge Ellis, III in Exelixis. (That
decision, and a conflicting decision from
Judge Brinkema, are on appeal at the Federal
Circuit.) A recent PTA complaint filed by Mr. Mohsenzadeh caught my
attention, because it raises a different issue: should PTA be
awarded in a divisional application when the USPTO took longer than
14 months to issue a Restriction Requirement in the parent
application?
The Patents at Issue
The patents at issue are U.S. Patent 8,352,362 and
U.S. Patent 8,401,963,
directed to methods of transferring resources from one entity to
another, and related methods. These two patents stem from
divisional applications of U.S. Patent 7,742,984.
