US 11257891

I'll search for litigation and docket records for this patent before compiling the summary.

US 11,257,891 B2 — "Display panel"

Sources used: the full patent text you supplied (authoritative), Google Patents, Unified Patents portal, and docket/news records via web search. Where sources disagree, I flag the conflict rather than resolving it silently.

1. Bibliographic data

Discrepancies to note. The Unified Patents portal lists priority date 2018-06-06, application date 2018-09-27, grant 2022-02-21 and expiration 2040-04-17 — i.e., it is offset by one day from the full text on three of four dates. I have not reconciled this; the Google Patents record in your authoritative text (2018-06-07 / 2018-09-28 / 2022-02-22) is the one I use above. Maintenance fee (4th year, large entity) paid 2025-08-15.

2. Abstract (as issued)

A display panel including a first section of a first power trace and a second power trace, an active region and a non-display region, a bending region, and a fanout routing region and a component disposing region; the first section of the first power trace connected to a second section of the first power trace disposed within the component disposing region; and the first section of the second power trace connected to a second section of the second power trace disposed within the component placement region by at least one set of second connection sub-traces disposed within the bending region. The invention changes the power line structure of the display panel and uses the second connecting sub-lines for bridging so that part of the traces can be bent to the backside of the display panel, achieving narrow bottom borders.

3. Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — the "two-set bridging" panel (VSS + VDD architecture).
A display panel has an active (display) region and a non-display region wrapped around it that extends downward into three zones: a bending region, a fanout routing region, and a component disposing region carrying component connecting pads.

• First power trace (described as the low-potential VSS line): its first section runs in the non-display region around the active region; it connects to a second section located in the component disposing region, which in turn connects to the pads.
• Second power trace (described as the high-potential VDD line): its first section sits between the active region and the bending region. That first section connects to a second section in the component disposing region through at least one set of second connecting sub-traces that pass through the bending region; the second section connects to the pads.
• Closing limitation: the first section of the second power trace is connected to the second section by two sets of second connecting sub-traces passing through two sections of the bending region.

The commercial point: the wide power rails are no longer routed into the bend zone as solid metal; they are bridged by many narrow parallel sub-traces so the panel can be folded at the BL line right below the VDD rail without delamination or trace breakage, shortening the bottom border (specification claims 0.8 mm–2.0 mm).

Claim 11 — the "left/middle/right" three-set panel.
Same overall architecture, but the bending region is expressly divided into a left section, a middle section, and a right section, and the panel also recites data traces running through the bending region to the pads. The first section of a power trace (adjacent to the active region) connects to its second section in the component disposing region via three sets of connecting sub-traces passing through the left, middle, and right sections. The redundancy is deliberate: if bending breaks one set, the remaining sets keep the product functional.

Claim 16 — the broadest "bridged power trace" panel.
An active region plus non-display region extending into a bending region and a component disposing region; a first section of a power trace adjacent to the active region is separately connected to a second section in the component disposing region by at least one set of connecting sub-traces passing through the bending region. The claim then adds the further limitation that the connection is made by three sets of sub-traces passing through left, middle, and right sections.

Dependent claims in brief (numbers as issued):

• Claims 2–6 (from claims 1/2/3): relative widths — first section of the second power trace is narrower than the second section but wider than a sub-trace; first section ≤ "ISO microns" as rendered in the fetched text (the specification says 150 microns — the claim text reads "ISO," which I take to be an OCR artifact, not a term of art); sub-trace ≤ 20 microns; second section ≤ 250 microns.
• Claims 7–10: the first power trace (VSS) is likewise bridged by a plurality of first connecting sub-traces through the bending region, with the trace sections wider than the sub-trace, sub-traces ≤ 20 microns, and a materials recitation (Ti-Al-Ti, Mo, Cu, or silver nanowire) for the sub-traces and data traces.
• Claims 12–15 (from claim 11): parallel sections, first section narrower than second section and wider than a sub-trace; ≤ 150 microns / ≤ 20 microns / ≤ 250 microns respectively.
• Claims 17–18 (from claim 16): parallel-section width relationship, and the two-set variant of claim 1's bridging.

Two drafting observations (flagged as analyst notes, not legal conclusions): (i) claims 8 and 9 both recite "The display panel according to claim 6," yet their subject matter ("first connecting sub-trace," "first section of the first power trace") is introduced in claim 7 — this looks like a dependency error; (ii) claim 1's final limitation of exactly "two sets … through two sections" sits uneasily with claim 3's "three sets … through a left section, a middle section, and a right section." Also, in the second embodiment the specification labels the second connecting sub-traces "210," which elsewhere denotes the first connecting sub-traces — a numbering inconsistency in the disclosure itself, not a claim issue.

4. Litigation — USPTO / district court / CAFC searches

U.S. district court (verified). Google Patents links this family to Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology Co Ltd v. Samsung Display Co Ltd, No. 2:26-cv-00228 (E.D. Tex.), filed 2026-03-19, Nature of Suit 830 (Patent), plaintiff identified as an operating company, status open (source: Unified Patents litigation data surfaced through Google Patents; docket aggregators confirm the case caption and number). A contemporaneous report describes CSOT asserting three OLED display patents against Samsung Display and retailers Walmart and Best Buy, over displays used in Google Pixel 8/9/10-series phones (https://www.anzone-consulting.cn/Intellectualproperty/1376.html). Uncertainty: none of the sources I retrieved enumerates the three asserted patent numbers, so I cannot confirm from an authoritative pleading that US 11,257,891 is one of the asserted patents — only that the patent's Google Patents record carries the 2:26-cv-00228 litigation flag. Note also that the same parties are litigating on the other side in N.D. Tex. (Samsung's case against TCL/CSOT entities, C.A. 2:26-cv-… / N.D. Tex. docket 405073), and that Google Patents also displays a Darts-IP worldwide-family litigation indicator for family ID 64087792.

CAFC 2026 dockets (searched; no match for this patent). I found no Federal Circuit appeal in 2026 involving US 11,257,891. The only 2026 CAFC matter between these parties that surfaced is Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology Co., Ltd. v. Samsung Display Co., Ltd., Nos. 26-1092, 26-1106 (Fed. Cir.), an appeal from PTAB IPR2024-00620, in which the court issued a nonprecedential order on April 7, 2026 dismissing the cross-appeal under Fed. R. App. P. 42(b) (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/26-1092/26-1092-2026-04-07.html). That proceeding concerns a PTAB IPR of a Samsung patent, not the '891 patent, and should not be conflated with it.

USPTO record (hint of prosecution history). The '891 patent was granted after a non-final office action (mailed 2021-06-21), a response (2021-09-23), and a notice of allowance (2021-11-05) — i.e., the claims were amended during prosecution. That matters for any future doctrine-of-equivalents analysis via prosecution history estoppel, though I have not reviewed the substance of the amendment.

5. Confidence statement

Everything in Section 1 and the abstract/claim summaries comes from the authoritative full text you supplied, which I treat as controlling. The E.D. Tex. case number, parties, and filing date are confirmed across at least two independent records; the identification of the specific asserted patents in that case is not confirmed. I found no CAFC docket entry for US 11,257,891 in 2026, but a negative search result is not proof of absence — I cannot rule out a recently filed, not-yet-indexed appeal.

I'll search litigation databases and docket sources for this specific patent number.

The Chinese litigation report explicitly names three asserted patents. Let me verify the case details and check for other proceedings (PTAB, ITC, other districts).

Confirmed the E.D. Tex. case. Now let me check PTAB, ITC, CAFC, and any other forums.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 11,257,891

Bottom line: I found one (1) U.S. litigation in which US 11,257,891 is a specifically identified asserted patent — the E.D. Tex. action captioned below. I found no PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR), no ITC Section 337 investigation, and no Federal Circuit appeal naming the '891 patent. Negative results are stated with caveats at the end.

Case 1 — CSOT v. Samsung Display, Walmart, Best Buy (the only identified case)

Why the '891 patent matters in this case (as pleaded): CSOT's theory is that the accused panels' power-trace layout — a first power trace routed around the active area plus a second power trace between the active area and the bending region, bridged to the component-disposing region by sets of narrow "connecting sub-traces" passing through the bending region — practices the '891 claims, enabling the narrow-bezel/folded-back component architecture. This tracks the architecture of asserted claim 1 (VSS + VDD split into wide main sections plus narrow sub-traces through the bend zone) summarized earlier in this analysis.

Sources: Unified Patents litigation record surfaced via the patent's Google Patents page; case docket/analysis record at 2:26-cv-00228 (amended complaint text, caption, parties, venue allegations, and patent-by-patent analysis); ZDNet Korea, "CSOT, 삼성디스플레이 상대 특허소송 제기…OLED 특허 3건 침해 주장" (March 23, 2026), which expressly names US 12,133,429 · 11,957,031 · 11,257,891; 163.com/WitDisplay and The Biz reports of the same three patents; scalejuris.com case note confirming docket 2:26-cv-00228.

Case 2 — Samsung Display v. CSOT et al. (related dispute — '891 NOT asserted)

• Case: Samsung Display Co., Ltd. v. Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology Co., Ltd., TCL China Star Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd., Ultimate Eshop LLC, Vican Inc. d/b/a eTech Parts Plus
• Court / number: N.D. Tex., 3:25-cv-01430; Judge Karen Gren Scholer
• Filed: June 5, 2025 (First Amended Complaint July 11, 2025)
• Samsung's asserted patents: US 11,594,578; US 7,414,599; US 9,330,593 — not the '891 patent
• Status: Open and actively litigated. Defendants/counter-claimants CSOT and Wuhan China Star filed an answer and counterclaims against Samsung Display (Oct. 14, 2025). Schedule: discovery due 10/9/2026, motions due 3/3/2027, jury trial set for 7/12/2027; Jeff Kaplan appointed mediator (mediation within 90 days before trial).
• Relevance: This is the predicate suit CSOT's 2:26-cv-00228 action is widely described as a retaliatory counterstrike to. Because the '891 patent is not asserted in 3:25-cv-01430, it does not count as a second '891 case — but CSOT's counterclaims there could theoretically implicate additional patents, which I could not verify from the retrieved record.

Case 3 — Federal Circuit 26-1092 / 26-1106 (PTAB appeal — '891 NOT at issue)

• Case: Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology Co., Ltd., Tianma Microelectronics Co. Ltd., Visionox Technology, Inc., Mianyang BOE Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. v. Samsung Display Co., Ltd.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Nos. 26-1092 (lead), 26-1106 (cross-appeal); appeal docketed Oct. 24, 2025
• Subject: Appeal from PTAB IPR2024-00620 concerning a Samsung Display patent (not the '891 patent)
• Status: Cross-appeal dismissed April 7, 2026 under Fed. R. App. P. 42(b), mandate issued in 26-1106 (per Justia docket); appellants' opening brief filed April 3, 2026, corrected versions filed April 17, 2026 (pending compliance review). Still pending.
• Caveat: Prior analysis in this matter characterized this as 26-1092/26-1106 with Mianyang BOE among appellants; the docket confirms Mianyang BOE's withdrawal as a party (order Dec. 2, 2025). This is a correction to the earlier-generated section.

Forums searched with no '891 hit

• PTAB (IPR/PGR/CBM): No petition challenging US 11,257,891 surfaced. The only CSOT/BOE/Tianma/Visionox-vs-Samsung PTAB activity found concerns Samsung-owned patents (IPR2024-00620 line).
• ITC Section 337: No investigation naming US 11,257,891 surfaced. Samsung Display's 2022–2023 Section 337 actions concerning BOE involved Samsung's patents, not the '891 patent.
• Other U.S. district courts / CAFC: No other complaint or appeal naming US 11,257,891 was found.
• Foreign / family litigation: Google Patents displays a Darts-IP worldwide-family litigation flag for family ID 64087792, and the '891 patent's Chinese counterpart is CN108807476B (from CN 201810581903.1A) with WO counterpart WO2019232995A1 (status ceased). I could not identify a specific foreign case asserting CN108807476B or a foreign counterpart of the '891 patent; the Darts-IP flag is a family-level indicator and I have not verified which family member(s) it covers.

Confidence and caveats

1. High confidence that US 11,257,891 is asserted in 2:26-cv-00228 (E.D. Tex., filed March 19, 2026). This is corroborated by three independent sources: the first amended complaint text itself listing the three patents (including 11,257,891 as the "891 patent"), the ZDNet Korea report of the same three patent numbers, and the case-analysis record identifying '891 claim 1 as asserted with '891-specific infringement allegations.
2. Filing-date discrepancy (unresolved): news reports and plaintiff's venue allegations date the filing to March 19, 2026; the case-analysis header shows 03/24/2026, which I read as the First Amended Complaint/clerk entry date. I have not reconciled these; I use March 19, 2026 as the complaint filing date.
3. Date discrepancy (flagged): the task states the current date as April 26, 2026, while some retrieved sources carry later datelines (e.g., June and September 2026). I report the docket events as the records state them without resolving the timeline conflict.
4. Negative results are not proof of absence. A recently filed PTAB petition, ITC complaint, or appeal may exist but not yet be indexed. Also, the third E.D. Tex. asserted patent (US 11,957,031) and the '891 patent share the same plaintiff/defendant set, so any future termination or global settlement of the Samsung–CSOT dispute (as happened in the Samsung–BOE matter in November 2025) would likely resolve this case as a bundle rather than patent-by-patent.
5. I did not locate the docket's latest entries for 2:26-cv-00228 (e.g., any motion to dismiss under § 101, transfer motion, or scheduling order), so the "current status" is stated as of the most recent record retrieved.

I'll research the AIA trial proceedings on US 11,257,891 before writing this up.

Let me search for the related IPRs Samsung filed on the co-asserted patents and any PTAB entries.

Proceedings overview

Exactly one AIA trial proceeding has been filed against US 11,257,891 — IPR2026-00485 (Samsung Display Co., Ltd., filed 2026-09-17) — leaving a breakdown of 1 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials; the bottom line for a defendant is that the patent is completely untested at the PTAB, so all 18 claims (independent claims 1, 11, 16) are presumed live and you cannot borrow anyone else's invalidity record — you must build your own.

The petition is one day old as of today (2026-09-18), so there is no institution decision, no panel, no POPR, no FWD, no settlement, and no appeal. Everything below distinguishes what is confirmed from what is not yet public.

IPR2026-00485 — Samsung Display Co., Ltd. v. Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology Co., Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2026-09-17
• Status: Pending (verbatim per the USPTO Open Data Portal structured record; last modified 2026-09-17). Plain-English gloss: the petition has been received and docketed with a proceeding number, but no filing-date notice, no POPR deadline order, no panel assignment, and no institution decision are public yet.
• Judge panel: Not yet public. No APJ panel has been assigned or published as of 2026-09-18.
• Petition grounds: Not yet public — I will not speculate. IPR petitions may only rely on prior-art patents and printed publications under § 102 / § 103 (35 U.S.C. § 311(b)); § 112 and public-use/on-sale grounds are categorically unavailable in an IPR. Given that claim 1 closes on "two sets of the second connecting sub-traces passing through two sections of the bending region," claims 11 and 16 on "three sets … passing through the left section, the middle section and the right section," and claim 10 recites a specific materials group (Ti-Al-Ti, Mo, Cu, silver nanowire), the likely art is flexible-OLED fanout/bending-region routing art (e.g., the Apple, Samsung Display, and LG Display references already of record on the face of the patent), but I have not seen the petition and cannot confirm the grounds.
• Institution decision: None. Statutory timing (derived from the standard rule set, not from a Board order in this case): POPR due ~2026-12-17 (3 months from notice); institution decision due ~2027-03-17 (3 months after the POPR deadline under § 314(b)); if instituted, FWD due ~2028-03-17 (12 months from institution under § 316(a)(11)).
• Final Written Decision: None. No claim of US 11,257,891 has been canceled, confirmed, or even addressed on the merits by the Board. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.
• Settlement / termination: None. The proceeding is active; no joint motion to terminate, no adverse judgment, no statutory disclaimer. Note that CSOT has not (as of this date) disclaimed any claim, and the patent's 4th-year maintenance fee was paid 2025-08-15.
• Appeal: None. No FWD exists to appeal. I found no Federal Circuit docket naming US 11,257,891. For completeness, the only 2026 CAFC matter between these parties that surfaced is Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology Co., Ltd. v. Samsung Display Co., Ltd., Nos. 26-1092, 26-1106, an appeal from PTAB IPR2024-00620 (a Samsung-owned patent, not this one), dismissed in part on 2026-04-07 (Justia). Do not conflate it with this proceeding.
• Defensive value: Neutral-to-unknown today. The only two things this filing establishes are (i) Samsung Display has decided the patent is worth attacking rather than merely litigating, and (ii) a second defendant could potentially piggyback procedurally — but not on § 315(e)(2) estoppel, which does not attach until a final written decision issues. Because Samsung is the petitioner and the E.D. Tex. defendant, and because it is a single petition rather than a multi-petition barrage, the more useful signal is schedule, not substance: this gives you a roughly 18-month window in which the validity of the patent is being litigated in parallel.

Litigation context you need to read this against (confirmed): CSOT asserted this patent — one of three — against Samsung Display, Walmart, and Best Buy in Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology Co., Ltd. v. Samsung Display Co., Ltd., No. 2:26-cv-00228 (E.D. Tex., Marshall Division), filed 2026-03-19 (Unified Patents docket; corroborating coverage in ZDNet Korea and ScaleJuris). The other two asserted patents are US 12,133,429 and US 11,957,031. The petition landed 182 days after the complaint — comfortably inside the § 315(b) one-year bar, with about six months of headroom.

Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED. There is no FWD, so no claim of US 11,257,891 is canceled and none is sustained. All 18 claims stand as issued. If you are weighing an invalidity position, the operative document is still the issued claim set, not any Board ruling. The internal vulnerabilities previously flagged remain the best seam for a claim-construction attack: independent claim 1 requires exactly "two sets … through two sections" while dependent claim 3 layers on "three sets … through a left section, a middle section, and a right section," and claims 8 and 9 both recite "The display panel according to claim 6" although their subject matter ("first connecting sub-trace," "first section of the first power trace") is introduced in claim 7 — a dependency irregularity worth pressing on the meaning of "the first power trace" and its antecedent basis. Note also that claim 4's "ISO microns" is an artifact of the fetched rendering (the specification says 150 microns); treat it as 150 microns but preserve the point if the patentee ever tries to read it literally.

Estoppel landscape: there is none yet — and that cuts both ways. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only after a final written decision. Until then, Samsung Display is not barred from raising anything, and neither are you. Practically, that means: (a) if you are a co-defendant or a differently situated party, there is no estoppel wall to stop you from running your own IPR on different art, though you face § 325(d) "same or substantially the same art" discretion and possible § 314(a) Fintiv-style denial; (b) if you are relying on Samsung to take the patent down for you, you are relying on a petition whose grounds you cannot yet evaluate. And be aware that IPR is the only AIA vehicle available: the § 321 PGR window closed nine months after grant (i.e., around 2022-11-22), and CBM review is unavailable both by subject matter (this is an OLED routing patent, not a financial-services business method) and by the statutory sunset. Ex parte reexamination remains an unconstrained fallback — and, per the June 2026 PTAB data, is currently being filed at roughly 4:1 over all IPR/PGR petitions combined.

Pattern signals: This is a single-petition, single-patent filing, not a coordinated multi-petition attack. Samsung Display filed on one of the three CSOT-asserted patents; I could not confirm whether it has filed, or will file, companion IPRs on US 12,133,429 and US 11,957,031. There is no defensive aggregator in the chain — Unified Patents appears only as a litigation-data source and its patent page, not as a petitioner; the Darts-IP indicator on the Google Patents record reflects worldwide-family litigation, i.e., the CSOT/Samsung dispute itself. The relationship is a straight bilateral display-industry war: Samsung Display sued CSOT in N.D. Tex. in June 2025 on US 11,594,578 / 7,414,599 / 9,330,593, and CSOT counterpunched in E.D. Tex. in March 2026. Notably, a Korean trade report (TheElec) states that two of Samsung Display's three asserted patents had already survived PTAB IPRs and one was still awaiting a Board ruling — that is about Samsung's patents, not this one, and should not be misread as this patent having survived anything.

Discretionary-denial risk (analyst inference, clearly labeled as such): With a co-pending E.D. Tex. case filed six months before the petition, § 314(a) discretionary denial is the live procedural question. Under the Director's March 11, 2026 guidance, the factors include whether accused products are manufactured in the U.S., whether the patent owner's competing products are U.S.-made, and whether the petitioner is a small business sued for infringement. Samsung Display is a large entity (which cuts against it) but manufactures in the U.S. and competes with China-manufactured CSOT panels (which cuts for it). That mix suggests institution is more likely than not, but this is my read, not a Board holding.

Recommended next steps

1. Pull the petition the moment it is docketed. The structured record confirms only the proceeding number and petitioner. Retrieve the petition and Exhibit 1001–10xx set from PTAB E2E at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/ once the filing-date notice issues (typically days to a few weeks). Until then, do not characterize the asserted grounds.
2. Calendar the statutory clock now, subject to the actual notices: POPR ~2026-12-17 → institution decision ~2027-03-17 → FWD ~2028-03-17. If you hold a co-defendant position and want to file your own petition, the practical window before Fintiv investment piles up in E.D. Tex. is short; coordinate with your § 315(b) bar date (one year from your service, not Samsung's).
3. Watch the Patent Owner's preliminary response for the discretionary-denial fight. CSOT is a foreign patent owner with no U.S. manufacturing of the competing panels; expect it to argue the parallel-litigation factors and, possibly, § 325(d) against art already of record (Sony US 2009/0135113, Apple US 2014/0042406, LG US 2017/0237027, Samsung Display US 2017/0287936/2017/0288008, and Samsung Display US 2019/0095007 are all on the face of the patent).
4. Do not cite a claim-level outcome, because none exists. If you are drafting a demand-letter response or an invalidity contention today, the accurate statement is: "US 11,257,891 is the subject of a single pending IPR, IPR2026-00485, filed 2026-09-17 by Samsung Display; no institution decision or final written decision has issued, and all 18 claims remain in force."
5. If institution is granted and an FWD later cancels claims, the disposition will be quotable verbatim from the FWD posted on the Board's decisions page; an appeal would be docketed at the Federal Circuit and searchable on CourtListener. Neither event has occurred.

Confidence statement: The proceeding number, petitioner, type, filing date, and Pending status come from the structured USPTO Open Data Portal record supplied to me and are treated as controlling. The claim structure and specification citations come from the authoritative full patent text. The E.D. Tex. case number, parties, and the identification of this patent as one of three asserted is confirmed by at least two independent sources. Everything about grounds, panel, and merits is explicitly marked as unknown — none of it is public as of 2026-09-18, and a negative search result for additional proceedings is not proof that none exist.

I'll research the assignment record for US 11,257,891 across USPTO Assignment Center, PEDS, and related sources.

The initial searches didn't surface the assignment correspondent. Let me query the USPTO assignment records directly.

Let me try to locate the specific assignment record and any post-issuance transfers.

Assignment and Ownership Analysis — US 11,257,891 B2 ("Display panel")

Primary sources attempted: USPTO Patent Assignment Search (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/, https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html), Google Patents legal-events rendering of the USPTO assignment record (the authoritative full text supplied), PlainSite/assignment mirror records for the same assignee, and the '891's litigation filings.

Verification caveat stated up front: I was able to retrieve the reel/frame, execution date, recording date, assignor, assignee and conveyance type from the assignment record as rendered in the patent's legal events. I was not able to open the Assignment Center record page for reel 047789/0052 to read the correspondent (attorney/agent) field, nor the page count. Where that field is unavailable below, I say so explicitly rather than guessing.

Cross-reference note / contradiction flagged: the previously generated sections of this analysis stated the current date as April 26, 2026; this task states September 18, 2026. I report record events as dated in the source documents and flag that this timeline conflict is unresolved. The prior sections' one-day offset between Unified Patents (2018-06-06 / 2018-09-27) and the authoritative full text (2018-06-07 / 2018-09-28) also remains unreconciled; I use the full text here.

Inventors

Pattern observations:

• Unusual-pattern check — negative. A single-inventor, single-employer patent is a normal large-fab filing pattern. There is no evidence of a mass inventor exodus surrounding the filing date, and I found no resignation/transfer data for this inventor in any retrieved source. I cannot affirmatively rule out the inventor having left the assignee; this is "not determinable from available records," not a finding of departure.
• The assignment was executed 2018-12-12, i.e. ~6 months after the 2018-06-07 CN priority filing and ~2.5 months after the PCT filing — the classic confirmatory employment assignment executed to perfect chain-of-title for the US national stage (US 16/309,113, filed 2018-09-28). It is not a pre-litigation or fire-sale transfer; the gap to the 2026 suit is roughly 7 years and 3 months.

Original assignee

Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology Co., Ltd. ("Wuhan CSOT") — original assignee on the face of the patent and, per every record retrieved, still the current assignee. Google Patents lists no assignee change after the 2018 assignment; the maintenance fee paid 2025-08-15 was paid by a large entity (event code MAFP), and the 2018-12-12 event code FEPP set entity status to "undiscounted / large entity" — consistent with a substantial corporate owner, not a small-entity shell.

• Primary line of business: design and manufacture of AMOLED / flexible OLED display panels (the patent's own field; CPC H10K 59/131, 59/12). It is a Wuhan-based panel fab entity, described in the assignment record address block as sited at 305 Room, Building C5, Biolake of Optics Valley, No. 666 Gaoxin Avenue, Wuhan East Lake High-Tech Development Zone, Wuhan, Hubei (430070/430079), China.
• Corporate position: a subsidiary/affiliate within the TCL China Star Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. ("TCL CSOT") group, itself part of TCL Technology Group. Samsung's N.D. Tex. complaint describes TCL CSOT as the majority shareholder of Wuhan CSOT (N.D. Tex. 3:25-cv-01430, Dkt. 1 ¶ 23).
• Status: operating. No bankruptcy, dissolution, receivership, or Chapter 7/11 filing by this assignee surfaced in any retrieved record. Portfolio analytics rank it around #247 of ~50,000 tracked US assignees (~1,717 granted US patents, 2018–2025, heavy H10K concentration) — an active filer, the opposite of a shell profile.
• Does it ship products embodying the claims? On the evidence available: yes, on the balance of the record. The '891 claims the VDD/VSS bus split into wide main sections bridged by narrow sub-traces through the bend zone so the driver/component region folds to the backside while keeping a very narrow bottom bezel. That architecture is the asserted commercial read of the patent (Chinese-language commentary describes exactly this: "VDD/VSS 电源总线被'分割'成宽的主部分和许多穿过弯曲区域的窄子走线…驱动/组件区域就可以折叠到背面"). TCL's own branded smartphones (TCL 10 Pro / 20 Pro 5G / 30 / 30+) are alleged in litigation to contain Wuhan CSOT-supplied OLED displays, and Wuhan CSOT is accused of supplying panels into the US aftermarket. I have not independently inspected a tear-down of a specific panel to confirm the claim reads on a shipping product; treat "ships products embodying the claims" as well-supported but not lab-verified here.

Assignment timeline

One (1) recorded assignment exists for US 11,257,891. There is no post-issuance assignment, no security agreement, no merger/change-of-name record, and no release on this patent in any record I retrieved.

• 2018-12-12 (executed) / recorded 2018-12-16 — Reel 047789 / 0052
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (see document for details) — ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:YI, SHIJUAN;REEL/FRAME:047789/0052
  • Assignor: YI, Shijuan (sole inventor)
  • Assignee: WUHAN CHINA STAR OPTOELECTRONICS SEMICONDUCTOR DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD. (Wuhan East Lake High-Tech Development Zone, Wuhan, Hubei, China)
  • Correspondent: NOT RETRIEVED. The correspondent/attorney-of-record field for reel 047789/0052 was not returned by any source I could reach, and I will not supply a name by inference. One adjacent data point, offered only as context and expressly not attributed to this reel/frame: a separate assignment recorded for this same assignee (reel/frame 52531/641, Wu & Choi → Wuhan CSOT, recorded 2020-04-30) names correspondent Martin D. Moynihan, PRTSI, Inc., P.O. Box 16446, Arlington, VA 22215 — a US prosecution/support firm used by this assignee family. That is a different chain with different assignors and a different application, so it establishes nothing about 047789/0052. If the Assignment Center page for 047789/0052 shows the same correspondent, that would be a routine in-house/outside-counsel docketing pattern for a large fab, not an NPE tell.
  • Context: Perfection of title / confirmatory employment assignment — sole inventor to his employer, executed to support the US national-stage entry of PCT/CN2018/108168. Not acquisition, not fire-sale, not reorg, not securitization.

Related (non-assignment) legal events on this patent, for completeness:

• 2018-12-12 — FEPP: entity status set to undiscounted (large entity).
• 2025-08-15 — MAFP: 4th-year maintenance fee paid, large entity. Patent remains active; adjusted expiration 2040-04-18.
• 2018-12-16 — the recording above also triggered the Assignment Center "reassignment" entry populating the Google Patents legal-events feed.

If Assignment Center returns nothing further for this patent number: that is itself the finding. Beyond reel 047789/0052, the original assignee still owns the patent, and the record is a single-link chain.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11257891
    2018 : CN priority application filed 7 June
         : PCT application filed 28 September
         : Inventor Yi Shijuan executes assignment
         : Recorded at reel 047789 frame 0052
    2021 : US pre-grant publication 22 July
    2022 : Patent granted 22 February
    2025 : 4th year maintenance fee paid
    2026 : Wuhan CSOT sues Samsung Display in EDTX
    2040 : Adjusted expiration 18 April

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. The only recorded conveyance (reel 047789/0052, executed 2018-12-12, recorded 2018-12-16) runs from a natural-person inventor to an operating panel manufacturer whose recorded address is a corporate fab campus in Wuhan — not a registered-agent service address, and the assignee name carries no "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix. Entity status was set to large entity (FEPP, 2018-12-12).

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. Neither the assignor nor either-record assignee matches any public NPE list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). The current owner is Wuhan CSOT / TCL CSOT — a manufacturer, ranked ≈#247 by US grant volume, which surfaces in Unified Patents' defendant-side PTAB petitions (e.g. IPR2023-01221, where Wuhan CSOT is a petitioner against Samsung patents) rather than in asserter directories.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT ASSESSABLE. The chain has exactly one link, so recurrence within the chain is structurally impossible. More importantly, the correspondent field for reel 047789/0052 could not be retrieved, so I cannot even state who filed the single recording. I expressly decline to fill this field by inference. See the PRTSI/Moynihan note above — it is not evidence for this reel.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. There is one assignment across the patent's entire life (2018 → present), not multiple transfers in under 24 months, and no chain of LLCs sharing a correspondent or address.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. The single assignment (2018-12-12) predates the earliest identified assertion of this patent — Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology Co., Ltd. v. Samsung Display Co., Ltd., Walmart Inc., Best Buy Co., Inc., E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00228 — by roughly 7 years and 3 months, and predates it by even longer if measured from the 2018-09-28 filing. There is no assignment within 6 months before suit; the plaintiff asserts as the original owner, so no venue- or standing-cleansing transfer was needed.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 filing by Wuhan CSOT, TCL CSOT, or TCL Technology Group surfaced in any retrieved record, and nothing in the chain looks like a Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid-style estate sale. (Caveat: I did not run a dedicated PACER bankruptcy or SEC EDGAR search on the TCL group; this is a "no evidence found" call, not a certified negative.)

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. The asserting party is the original operating assignee, suing directly. There is no intervening licensing vehicle interposed between the manufacturer and the assertion, no disclosed transfer to an NPE asserting "on behalf of" Wuhan CSOT, and no SEC or press coverage characterizing the 2026 suit that way. The commonly reported framing is the opposite: CSOT's E.D. Tex. action is described as a direct counterstrike to Samsung Display's N.D. Tex. 3:25-cv-01430 suit against TCL/CSOT entities — i.e., competitor-versus-competitor, not privateering.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent remains with the operating manufacturer and is being actively asserted by it. (Note the asymmetry to track: Wuhan CSOT appears as a petitioner in Unified Patents-indexed IPRs against Samsung patents — that is defensive use of a different tool, not ownership transfer of the '891.)

Scorecard: 0 present · 8 not present/unclear, of which 7 are firm negatives and 1 (repeat correspondent) is a data-gap.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Justification: The entire ownership history of US 11,257,891 is a single recorded assignment — inventor Shijuan YI to Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology Co., Ltd., executed 2018-12-12 and recorded 2018-12-16 at reel 047789/0052 — with no post-issuance transfer, no security agreement, no LLC intermediary, and no defensive-aggregator termination. The current owner is a large-entity AMOLED panel manufacturer (4th-year maintenance fee paid as a large entity on 2025-08-15; ≈#247 by US grant volume) that is suing an actual competitor, Samsung Display, together with two retailers, in E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00228 — the textbook profile of a products company enforcing its own portfolio, and the inverse of every NPE signal in the checklist. The one honest gap in this reconstruction is the correspondent of record for reel 047789/0052, which I could not retrieve; if that field later shows a repeat-player NPE-recording attorney, this call would warrant revisiting, but nothing in the assignor, assignee, timing, entity-status, or litigation record supports an NPE reading today.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — search patent 11257891 · legacy mirror: assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search by Patent Number = 11257891, then confirm Reel 047789 / Frame 0052).

Fabrication-avoidance / confidence statement

• High confidence: reel/frame 047789/0052, execution 2018-12-12, recording 2018-12-16, conveyance "Assignment of Assignors' Interest," assignor YI, Shijuan, assignee Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology Co., Ltd. — all taken from the authoritative legal-events rendering of the USPTO record.
• High confidence: no other assignment, security agreement, merger, or change-of-name record exists for this patent in the sources searched.
• Explicitly unknown, not guessed: the correspondent/attorney of record for 047789/0052; the number of properties/pages in that recording; whether any unrecorded license or security interest exists (recording is not mandatory — an unrecorded lien would be invisible here).
• Unreconciled conflicts flagged: current-date mismatch (Apr 26 2026 vs. Sep 18 2026) between prior generated sections and this task; the one-day date offset in Unified Patents' bibliographic fields versus the full text; and the E.D. Tex. filing-date variance (03/19/2026 complaint vs. 03/24/2026 amended-complaint entry) noted in prior sections.