...

Adjusted Expiration is Anticipated Expiration + Term Extension and/or Adjustment. For example, see the first page of US-8566251-B2:

 Image Removed

 Image Added

In the "Notice" section, it says "Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U.S.C. 154(b) by 96 days. This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer”. 

...

The adjusted-expiration has 96 days added on due to the term extension. But note – there is a terminal disclaimer. We do not know what is in that. So , we tell you that there is one – but cannot do any date adjustment. 

Therefore, "adjusted expiration" is just our best estimate of the expiration date. To get an exact date, you need to open up the file wrapper and see what the terminal disclaimers say, and see if any additional adjustments have been made.

Searching with the Anticipated and Adjusted Expiration Date Fields

The anticipated and adjusted expiration date fields can be useful in searching. However, one must be careful.

For example, if one wants to see how many US grants expire in 2020, it is important to note that the ifi_expdyear_adj field is only present in a record if there has been a term adjustment or extension. When there is no adjustment or extension, there is no adjusted expiration date and users must use the anticipated expiration date.

So if you enter the following search using the anticipated expiration year:

pnctry:US AND pnkind:(A OR B1 OR B2) AND ifi_expdyear:2020

this results in 208,915 records. This is NOT the correct result as it excludes grants with term adjustments and extensions that when adjusted, expire in 2020.

If you perform the same search and replace the anticipated expiration year with the adjusted expiration year:

pnctry:US AND pnkind:(A OR B1 OR B2) AND ifi_expdyear_adj:2020

this results in 32,889 records. This is obviously NOT correct and reflects only those records with populated ifi_expdyear_adj fields (about 15% of the records).

To get the correct number, you must combine the anticipated and adjusted expiration date fields using the "OR" operator in a nested search:

pnctry:US AND pnkind:(A OR B1 OR B2) AND ((ifi_expdyear_adj:2020) OR (ifi_expdyear:2020 AND NOT flags:has_ifi_expdyear_adj))

This results in 167,209 records. It is the sum of:

pnctry:US AND pnkind:(A OR B1 OR B2) AND (ifi_expdyear:2020 AND NOT flags:has_ifi_expdyear_adj)

which results in 134,320 records, and

pnctry:US AND pnkind:(A OR B1 OR B2) AND (ifi_expdyear_adj:2020)

which results in 32,889 records.by adding a terminal-disclaimer flag, but we cannot adjust the date without more information.

Similarly, the presence of a regulatory-extension flag indicates that exploitation of a patent has been delayed by regulatory review (e.g., FDA review) or that a Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) has been issued for a patent.

IFI combines extensions and adjustments if both are present. For example, in US-6740669-B1, we see a patent term adjustment (PTA):

<term-of-grant>
  <us-term-extension>801</us-term-extension>
</term-of-grant>

as well as a patent term extension (PTE):

<office-specific-data>
  <ustags>
    <us-gazette>
      <us-extensions>
      ...
        <text>819 days</text>

The two are combined in the IFI term extension:

<ifi-integrated-content publication-type="G" accession-number="04072107" document-category="Utility" subject-area="Chemical">
  <ifi-patent-status anticipated-expiration="20180608" regulatory-extension="yes" adjusted-expiration="20221114">
    <ifi-patent-status-description country="US">Active</ifi-patent-status-description>
      <ifi-term-extension>1620</ifi-term-extension>

Litigation and actions such as appeal board reviews may also affect legal status. IFI has a blog post on this topic at The USPTO's PTAB is very busy - and why it matters.  

Therefore, "adjusted expiration" is just our best estimate of the expiration date. To get an exact date, you need to open up the file wrapper and see what the terminal disclaimers say, and see if any additional adjustments have been made.

For tips on searching anticipated and adjusted expiration dates, see Tips for Searching the IFI Snapshots.