Behind the shells.

How to read this page

Possible privateering — operating companies & universities

The case worth a second look. When a company or university transfers a patent to an entity flagged as a shell or NPE that later files suit, that can be a privateering signature — the original owner keeps its name off the complaint while the shell does the suing. But the same transfer is also consistent with an ordinary patent sale, an out-licensing deal, a spin-out, a bankruptcy, or routine portfolio management. Read it as a question to investigate, not an accusation.

Possible aggregator portfolios

The Intellectual Ventures / Acacia shape: a large NPE or aggregator that appears to feed patents to several single-purpose sub-shells. More useful for mapping the web around a suspected operator than as a finding in itself.

Each row shows the backer, how many flagged shell/NPE entities it transferred patents to, the patents moved, and how many of those entities later appear as plaintiffs ⚖️. The kind tags (NPE, shell LLC, operating co, university, aggregator) are the model’s best guess from each patent’s assignment-history dossier and may be wrong — an entity flagged as a shell or NPE may be neither. Treat everything here as a lead to verify against the underlying records, not a determination that any entity is a shell, an NPE, or a privateer.