Patent 11418641

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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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

Original assignee

The original assignee is Competitive Access Systems Inc.. The patent describes a "Residential Communications Gateway (RCG)" device that combines IP router, Class 5 circuit switch, and wireless LAN capabilities, suggesting they shipped a product embodying the claims. Their primary line of business, as inferred from the patent, appears to be providing telecommunication services and equipment to Competitive Local Exchange Companies (CLECs) to compete with Local Exchange Companies (LECs) for residential voice and data services.

Regarding its current status, the legal status of the patent itself is "Expired - Lifetime, expires 2023-12-11", which predates the current date of 2026-05-21. This indicates that Competitive Access Systems Inc. (or any subsequent assignee) would no longer hold enforceable rights under this specific patent.

Assignment timeline

As of May 21, 2026, a search of the USPTO Assignment Center for patent number US11418641 reveals no recorded assignments for this patent. This indicates that the ownership of the patent remains with the original assignee, Competitive Access Systems Inc., as listed on the issued patent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11418641
    2002 : Priority date
    2003 : Application filed
    2022 : Patent issued to Competitive Access Systems Inc
    2023 : Patent expired

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — not present (No assignments are recorded, so no transfers to shell entities have occurred.)

  2. Known asserter in the chain — not present (No assignments are recorded, thus no known asserters are in the chain.)

  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present (No assignments are recorded, so no correspondent patterns can be observed.)

  4. Cascading transfers — not present (No assignments are recorded.)

  5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present (While litigation is noted, there are no recorded assignments preceding it.)

  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — unclear (There is no information in the provided patent text or the USPTO assignment search results to indicate whether the original assignee, Competitive Access Systems Inc., has filed for bankruptcy or if the patent was sold in such proceedings.)

  7. Privateering — unclear (There is no information in the provided patent text or the USPTO assignment search results to suggest privateering.)

  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present (No assignments are recorded, and the patent's legal status is expired.)

Verdict

Insufficient data (No recorded assignments for US11418641 are found in the USPTO Assignment Center. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of the ownership chain and potential NPE patterns cannot be performed beyond the original assignee.)

For verification, you can search the USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

Generated 5/21/2026, 12:48:34 PM