human: Applicant filed a benefit claim to an earlier provisional application within four months from the actual filing date of a utility nonprovisional application filed on or after November 29, 2000. Applicant, however, submitted a benefit claim that included
assistant: Applicant can correct the benefit claim during the pendency of the application by submitting an amendment changing the first sentence of the specification (e.g., ""This application claims the benefit of the provisional application, 60/xxx,xxx, filed on 12/01/01""). The petition under 37 CFR 1.78(a)(6) and the surcharge would not be required because the Office was able to correctly schedule the application for publication with the relationship given.
If the application has issued as a patent, however, the correction cannot be made.
The claim that one application is a continuation or division of another is a benefit claim under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, or 365(c), and the term of a patent is measured from the prior application's filing date. Removing the benefit claim under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, or 365(c) would thus have the effect of lengthening the term of the patent, which cannot be done by Certificate of Correction. Furthermore, removing the benefit claim in a reissue application will not change the term of the patent.