Patent term adjustment (PTA) is awarded for essentially two kinds of delay during prosecution, which are based on two sub-sections in the America Invents Act (AIA). One guarantees prompt responses from the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (PTO) called A-delay. The other guarantees no more than three years of patent application pendency, excluding certain delays caused by the applicant which are called B-delays. Recently, a split developed regarding the correct way to calculate and award B-delays.
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