How to renew passport before the last 12 months of its validity

[dushy83]

I am in a need to renew my passport before I hit the last 12 months of its validity. Based on the below mentioned details, can someone please suggest some ideas to get this done?

Passport expiry: 04-June-2014
Current H1B Expiry: 24-Feb-2013

As my H1 is expiring soon, I need to file for renewal. But, when I apply for a renewal and my company requests (say for example) feb 2013 to feb 2014, the rules expect my Passport to be valid for the requested visa term plus a further 6 months. This means my PP should be valid till Aug 2014. As my PP is valid only till June 2014, I need to renew my PP before we apply for my H1 renewal in jan or feb 2013. But since I am not in the last 12 months of the PP's validity, I am not able to apply for Passport renewal.
Is there any way I can apply for a PP renewal such that they extend the PP validity for another 10 years? I was told reporting it damaged may get this done. But I am not sure if that will just get me a new book with the same dates or also refresh the dates for the next 10 years. Please advise how can I get this done. Without this will my visa application be rejected for sure?

[cafeconleche]

Are you sure your passport needs to be valid for that long? Even a 10 year visit visa is issued to someone with a passport that expired much earlier.

[dushy83]

I never thought of it that way. When i was looking for the webpage where I had read this I noticed that some countries seem to be exempted from this requirement and India is one of them. In the below link under "Application Items" bullet point # 2

http://www.ustraveldocs.com/in/in-niv-typework.asp#visadescription

I hope I will be fine applying for a renewal come february. Thank you so much for the help.