Stayed outside US for 365 days.. will that reset previous stays?

I stayed in L1B visa till July 2013 in US for exactly 4 years and 4 months and I travelled back to India on July end as my third L1B extension has been denied. From then I am outside US till now (for more than 1 year). In this April 2014, my employer filed a new H1B CAP petition which also got approved few weeks back for 1 year as I was not able to show contract for entire 3 years.

Now, when I travel to US on H1B in this October, would I be able to apply extension by next year to utilize the fresh 6 years as I was out of country for 365 days or the initial 4 years and 4 months will still be considered and I can use only remaining 1 year and 8 months? I checked with my employer immigrations and they are confirming as the beneficiary stayed outside US for 365 days the clock will reset and I can utilize fresh 6 years. Please confirm.

Yes you are right. You have complete 6 years in your bucket.

Hii, I am in the same situation as u were. Did u get freah 6 years? Plz respond. There r a lot of contradictory posts on this topic.

Yes. It’s not just outside US for 365 days and our new visa should be in CAP going through lottery.

Great, thank you so much! To summarize for benefit of others, US exit date and re-entry date (for the calculation of 365 days cooling period) and filing of a new CAP thru lottery is what matters and not the H1B CAP filing date (1st April in most cases).