Patent 11677798

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.

✓ Generated

Here is the assignment analysis for US patent 11,677,798.

Inventors

  • David F. Brueck
  • Mark B. Hurst
  • R. Drew Major

The patent's abstract and detailed description do not specify the inventors' employers at the time of the original 2004-2005 filing. However, given the assignment to DISH Technologies LLC, it is highly probable they were employees or contractors for DISH or a predecessor/related entity when the invention was conceived. There are no unusual patterns, such as mass departures, indicated in the public record.

Original assignee

The original assignee listed on the face of the patent is DISH Technologies LLC.

DISH Technologies LLC is the technology development arm of DISH Network, a major American provider of satellite television, and more recently, streaming services (Sling TV) and mobile wireless services. As the provider of Sling TV, DISH Network directly ships a commercial product that embodies the adaptive bitrate streaming technologies described in the patent claims. The company remains an active, major operating entity in the telecommunications and media sectors.

Assignment timeline

A search of the USPTO Patent Assignment Search database for U.S. Patent No. 11,677,798 reveals no recorded assignment documents.

This finding indicates that ownership of the patent has remained with the original assignee, DISH Technologies LLC, since it was issued. There have been no recorded sales, transfers, or security agreements involving this specific patent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11677798
    2004 : Priority date
    2005 : Earliest non-provisional filing
    2023 : Patent issued to DISH Technologies LLC
         : First infringement suits filed
    2025 : Projected expiration date

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer: Not present. The patent remains with the original operating company assignee.

  2. Known asserter in the chain: Not present. The only entity in the chain is DISH Technologies LLC, which is an operating company, not a publicly listed non-practicing entity (NPE).

  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain: Not present. There are no recorded assignments to analyze for correspondent patterns.

  4. Cascading transfers: Not present. There have been no transfers.

  5. Pre-litigation transfer: Not present. The patent was not transferred prior to the litigation campaign initiated in 2023. The original assignee is the plaintiff.

  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale: Not present. DISH Technologies LLC and its parent companies are solvent, operating entities.

  7. Privateering: Not present. DISH is asserting the patent on its own behalf.

  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE): Not present. The patent has not been transferred to a defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion

This is a clear case of an operating company asserting its patents. DISH Technologies LLC is the R&D subsidiary of DISH Network, which developed the technology, commercialized it in products like Sling TV, and is now suing direct competitors in the streaming media space (e.g., FuboTV). The complete absence of any transfers to third-party LLCs and the direct line from invention to commercial product to litigation confirms this is not NPE activity.

A link to the USPTO Assignment Search results for verification is here: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#/patent/search/result?patentNumber=11677798

Generated 5/10/2026, 6:47:52 PM