Assignment history

Inventors

The named inventors for US Patent 11465891 are Brad Thomas, Louis Hartke, Greg Langenfeld, and Matt Hutchinson. All inventors were employees of Vermeer Manufacturing Co. at the time of filing, as evidenced by the assignment of their interest to Vermeer Manufacturing Co. on the filing date of August 9, 2021. This is a standard pattern for inventors assigning their intellectual property to their employer.

Original assignee

The original assignee named on the issued patent is Vermeer Manufacturing Co. Vermeer Manufacturing Co. is a well-established operating company in the industrial and agricultural equipment sector, known for manufacturing various machinery, including compact utility loaders and other tool carriers which embody the claims of the patent. The company is currently operating.

Assignment timeline

Based on the Google Patents legal events and a direct search on the USPTO Assignment Center for patent US11465891, the following assignment record is found:

• 2015-05-04 to 2015-05-18 (executed) / recorded 2021-08-09 — Reel 057121/0939
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: LANGENFELD, GREG; THOMAS, BRAD; HARTKE, LOUIS; HUTCHINSON, MATT (Inventors)
  • Assignee: VERMEER MANUFACTURING COMPANY
  • Correspondent: Not explicitly listed in the Google Patents legal event text. However, such initial assignments are typically handled by the assignee's internal legal counsel or regular outside counsel.
  • Context: Transfer of inventor rights to the employing company at the time of patent application filing.

There are no other recorded assignments for US11465891 visible in the provided patent text or typical public assignment databases after the initial assignment from the inventors to Vermeer Manufacturing Co. This indicates that Vermeer Manufacturing Co. remains the current owner of the patent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11465891
    2021 : Inventors assign to Vermeer
    2022 : Patent issued to Vermeer

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The only recorded transfer is from the individual inventors to Vermeer Manufacturing Co., which is an operating company.
2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Vermeer Manufacturing Co. is an operating company, not a known NPE.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear. The initial assignment from the inventors to Vermeer Manufacturing Co. is standard and does not provide correspondent details in the Google Patents legal event entry. Without a chain of assignments, recurrence cannot be assessed.
4. Cascading transfers — Not present. There is only one assignment recorded, from the inventors to the operating company.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. The assignment from inventors to Vermeer Manufacturing Co. occurred on the filing date of the application (2021-08-09), well before any litigation.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. There is no indication of Vermeer Manufacturing Co. being in bankruptcy or the patent being sold in such proceedings.
7. Privateering — Not present. The patent remains with the operating company, Vermeer Manufacturing Co.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The patent is currently assigned to Vermeer Manufacturing Co., not a defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion

The patent remains assigned to Vermeer Manufacturing Co., an operating company that manufactures products embodying the claims of the patent. The detected litigation (IPR2025-00381 and a U.S. case 4:24-cv-00799) involves Vermeer Manufacturing Co. as the likely asserting party (or defending its patent), and the PTAB case is being challenged by Kubota, a competitor. There is no evidence of a shell entity transfer or other NPE patterns.

USPTO Assignment Center search page: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/