Information about other prior-filed applications by the same inventor for related subject matter appears here. As indicated, this patent was divided from a prior application filed almost two years earlier. Usually, an application is divided because it is found to have disclosed two distinct inventions. In this case, patents were granted from both the original application and and the divisional application.

Other formalities which may require notation in a patent of related patent material are various types of continuations and reissues. Continuations become necessary or required for a number of reasons, usually because the inventor has made a new discovery and wants to have the new matter included in the eventual patent. In some cases, the original application will go on to result in a separate patent; in others the original will be abandoned, but the benefit of its earlier filing date will be retained. Applications leading to a re-issue of an existing patent are usually made to clarify matter in the original patent. These references must be included in the new patent, because the original filing date of the parent application in each case affects the calculation of the patent's term.

Because the application leading to this patent is a division of the noted earlier-filed application, the term of this patent would be calculated under current rules (that is, if the application had been filed after June 8, 1995) to be 20 years from the earlier filing date. However, because the time between filing of the application(s) in 1991 and 1993, and the issue of the patent in 1996, spanned the 1995 "Uruguay" date, the term of this patent is said to be the greater of 20 years from the earlier filing date (that is, September 5, 2011), or 17 years from the Patent Date. So the term of this patent may last until September 24, 2013, provided the patent is properly maintained in the meantime.