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.

Assignment history

Inventors

Levaughn Denton. Employer at time of filing not determinable from the patent text.

Original assignee

Zophonos Inc. The patent text states the invention relates to audio manipulation and sound management systems for various applications, including home audio, public address, vehicle audio, and transducers, and that Zophonos Inc. is the current assignee. It also mentions "pet products w/smart units" for sensing and analyzing frequencies (see FIG. 9) and "a pet collar" (see FIG. 10). This indicates that Zophonos Inc. likely ships products embodying the claims, particularly in the realm of smart audio devices for various environments, including pet-related products. Zophonos Inc. is currently listed as "Active" in the legal status on Google Patents.

Assignment timeline

No assignment records for US patent 11204736 were found using the USPTO Assignment Center search (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ or https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). This indicates that Zophonos Inc., the original assignee, still holds ownership of the patent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11204736
    2019 : Filed by Zophonos Inc
    2021 : Issued to Zophonos Inc

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Shell-entity transfer — not present. No transfers from an operating assignee to a licensing-only LLC have been recorded.
Known asserter in the chain — not present. No known NPEs are present in the ownership chain.
Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. No assignment records exist to show a repeat correspondent.
Cascading transfers — not present. No multiple consecutive assignments have been recorded.
Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No transfers have been recorded that could precede litigation.
Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. There is no evidence of Zophonos Inc. filing for bankruptcy.
Privateering — not present. No evidence of privateering has been found.
Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The patent has not been acquired by a defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Insufficient data
There are no recorded assignments for US11204736 in the USPTO Assignment Center. This indicates that the patent is still owned by the original assignee, Zophonos Inc., and therefore, there is insufficient data to identify any NPE or patent-troll patterns. Verification can be performed at the USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/