Patent 10020961

Assignment history

Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.

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Ownership chain (2)

Asserters network →

Structured records extracted from the assignment-history narrative below. Each entity links to its full ownership-network profile.

  1. 2014-12-23 · recorded 2014-12-26 · reel 034586/0574 · Assignment

    BYUN, SUNG HYUKELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE

    original assignment

  2. 2014-12-23 · recorded 2015-01-15 · reel 034767/0471 · Correction

    BYUN, SUNG HYUKELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE

    correction

Assignment history

Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.

✓ Generated

Inventors

  • Sung Hyuk BYUN (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute ETRI)

Original assignee

The original assignee is Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI). ETRI is a South Korean government-funded research institute. Their primary line of business is research and development in information and communication technologies. It is an operating entity.

Assignment timeline

The USPTO Assignment Center records show two assignments related to US10020961:

  • 2014-12-23 (executed) / recorded 2014-12-26 — Reel 034586/0574

    • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
    • Assignor: BYUN, SUNG HYUK
    • Assignee: ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
    • Correspondent: Not specified in the provided Google Patents data, and direct access to USPTO Assignment Center documents is not possible without an account to view the full records.
    • Context: Original assignment from inventor to the initial assignee.

  • 2014-12-23 (executed) / recorded 2015-01-15 — Reel 034767/0471

    • Conveyance: CORRECTIVE ASSIGNMENT TO CORRECT THE ADDRESS OF THE ASSIGNEE PREVIOUSLY RECORDED ON REEL 034586 FRAME 0574. ASSIGNOR(S) HEREBY CONFIRMS THE ASSIGNMENT.
    • Assignor: BYUN, SUNG HYUK
    • Assignee: ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
    • Correspondent: Not specified in the provided Google Patents data.
    • Context: Corrective assignment to update assignee's address.

These records indicate that the patent was assigned from the inventor, Sung Hyuk BYUN, to the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute ETRI around the time of filing, with a subsequent corrective assignment. There are no other recorded assignments of this patent to different entities.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10020961
    2014 : Filed by ETRI
         : Inventor assigns to ETRI
         : Corrective assignment for ETRI
    2018 : Issued to ETRI
    2026 : Active, expires 2036-07-19

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The patent was assigned from the inventor to ETRI, a government-funded research institute, which is an operating entity with a clear mission in R&D and technology licensing. There is no evidence of a transfer to a licensing-only LLC.
  2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. ETRI is not listed as a known NPE. The patent has remained with the original assignee.
  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear. The correspondent information is not readily available in the provided Google Patents snippets for the assignment records. Direct access to USPTO Assignment Center documents would be needed to verify this.
  4. Cascading transfers — Not present. There were no multiple consecutive assignments through chained LLCs. Only two assignments from the inventor to the same entity (one original, one corrective) are recorded.
  5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. The patent has remained with ETRI, and while there is a PTAB case (IPR2026-00322) and a US case filed in Texas Eastern District Court, there's no indication of a transfer specifically preceding litigation. The assignments occurred in 2014, long before the litigation events mentioned for 2025 and 2026.
  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. ETRI is an active, government-funded research institute.
  7. Privateering — Not present. There is no evidence of ETRI transferring the patent to an NPE to assert on its behalf.
  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The patent remains with ETRI, not a defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Insufficient data

While there are strong indications that ETRI is an operating entity and not an NPE, the lack of full correspondent information from the USPTO Assignment Center means a definitive judgment on some NPE signals (like "Repeat correspondent across the chain") cannot be made with high confidence. The patent currently remains with the original assignee, ETRI, a government-funded research institute. The recorded assignments are from the inventor to ETRI in 2014 (Reel 034586/0574, Reel 034767/0471).

For verification, see the USPTO Assignment Center search for patent 10020961: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

Generated 5/29/2026, 5:56:19 PM