benefit of priority

Economic defendability states that defense of a resource have costs, such as energy expenditure or risk of injury, as well as benefits of priority access to the resource.

A 12-month benefit of priority to foreign-filed applications had been a part of U.S. patent law since the 1901 U.S. ratification of the Brussels revision of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property.

Furthermore, applicants could file only one RCE for each "family" of applications (that is, the group of applications including original applications and each of the continuation applications claiming the benefit of priority of the original application) unless the USPTO granted the applicant permission upon showing "good cause."