http://www.yale.edu/ocr/pfg/guidelines/patent/continuation.html

total guess....here is my opinion and total insane guess of what maybe we're doing--only my unqualified..2 cell brain-- non engineer, non patent atty opinion....excerpt from above:(emphasis by plankton) btw, this article could be stale law...etc...

ha ha ---unleash crazy nunchi dogs!!!

would love to hear from doni and sman re: continuation in part possibilities to our "alleged" priority date of 2004 encryption patent pending....

"One somewhat sneaky but perfectly acceptable way of using continuation applications is to make sure that the disclosure of an original patent application is always pending. Because an unlimited number of continuation applications may be filed, the only requirement being that at least one application in the chain of continuation applications is still pending, it is possible to keep a chain of patent applications alive for a long period of time. This is useful when a technology field is crowded and there are several competitors, and when it's not really certain exactly what the competitor will try to bring to market.

Competitors will often review the claims of an issued patent to determine how to make a competing product that does not infringe the patent, referred to as "designing around" a patent. In this case, the initial claims of the original patent may not be effective in maintaining the monopoly power of the patentee regarding the invention. By filing additional continuation applications whenever an existing patent application is to issue as a patent or whenever the prosecution of an existing patent application is to be terminated, an applicant can make sure that a continuation patent application claiming priority from the original application is always pending. Then, if a competing product is ever produced, the claims of the pending continuation application can be amended, or another continuation application can be filed, so that the claims clearly cover the competing product, ensuring that the product will infringe the new claims."