Patent 10916138

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 (1)

Asserters network →

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

  1. 2019-11-06 · reel 052478/0270 · Assignment

    O'SULLIVAN, SEANCarma Technology Ltd.

    Correspondent: SCHOX, PATRICK · SCHOX

    Inventor assigned rights to his company

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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Inventors

Sean O'Sullivan. At the time of filing, Sean O'Sullivan was the founder of Carma Technology Ltd (formerly Avego), the original assignee. It is assumed he was employed by Carma Technology Ltd.

Original assignee

Carma Technology Ltd.
Carma Technology Ltd (formerly Avego) is a real-time transportation technology company headquartered in Cork, Ireland, with offices in San Francisco and Austin. Its flagship product, Carma Carpooling, is a smartphone application that matches users with nearby commuters to share rides and costs, directly embodying the claims of US10916138. The company has evolved to provide an "AI operating system for modern fleets". Carma Technology Ltd is currently operating and actively launching new applications related to road pricing and fleet management.

Assignment timeline

  • 2019-11-06 (executed) / recorded 2019-11-06 — Reel 052478/0270
    • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
    • Assignor: O'SULLIVAN, SEAN
    • Assignee: CARMA TECHNOLOGY LTD.
    • Correspondent: SCHOX, PATRICK, SCHOX, PLC, 500 3RD STREET, SUITE 515, SAN FRANCISCO, CA, 94107.
    • Context: Inventor assigned rights to his company.

No further assignment records for US10916138 were found in the USPTO Assignment Center as of 2026-05-29.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10916138
    2007 : Priority date
    2019 : Filed by Carma Technology Ltd
         : Inventor assigned to Carma Tech
    2021 : Issued to Carma Technology Ltd
    2025 : First infringement suit filed

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The only recorded transfer is from the inventor to Carma Technology Ltd (Reel 052478/0270), which is an operating company with products directly related to the patent claims.
  2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Carma Technology Ltd is not listed as a known NPE.
  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Not present. Only one assignment is recorded (Reel 052478/0270), handled by SCHOX, PATRICK, SCHOX, PLC, so there is no recurrence to analyze.
  4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Only one assignment is recorded.
  5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. The assignment from the inventor to Carma Technology Ltd occurred on 2019-11-06 (Reel 052478/0270). The first infringement suit identified for the patent family was filed in 2025 [cite: US10916138B2], significantly after this assignment.
  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. Carma Technology Ltd is an active, operating company.
  7. Privateering — Not present. There is no evidence of Carma Technology Ltd transferring the patent to an NPE to assert on its behalf.
  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The patent is currently owned by Carma Technology Ltd.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion
The patent US10916138 is currently owned by its original assignee, Carma Technology Ltd, an operating company that develops and markets shared transport and fleet management software and applications that embody the patent's claims. While the patent family is involved in litigation, there is only one recorded assignment from the inventor to the company (Reel 052478/0270), and no other NPE-related signals are present in the assignment chain.

Verification: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

Generated 5/29/2026, 5:44:26 PM