Patriot Scientific

Changing the language of a patent during re-exam at the PTO may well result in some of the claims being reinterpreted at some point in time down the road, such as in litigation when an opponent, or sometimes the patentee, sees an advantage in doing so. However, those changes do not operate to extend the life of the patent --- if the converse was true, then no patent deemed valuable would ever expire because the patentee and/or owner would perpetually change the language to make sure it stayed "alive".

As I've mentioned before, there are some exceptions that allow the life of a patent to be extended, but those scenarios are extremely limited and do not encompass the above. You can easily Google this subject if you're interested in doing further reading.

Best wishes to you and all.