Assignment history

Inventors

• Michael Ragusa: The sole inventor listed on the patent. Based on the assignment record (Reel 61077/0173), Mr. Ragusa assigned the patent to Haemonetics Corporation, indicating he was likely an employee or contractor for the company at the time of invention.

Original assignee

The original assignee is Haemonetics Corporation (NYSE: HAE). Haemonetics is a global healthcare company that provides medical products and solutions for hematology, including apheresis systems for plasma and platelet collection, and surgical blood salvage systems. The company actively develops, manufactures, and sells products that appear to embody the claims of US patent 11,738,124, which is directed to a "System and method for collecting plasma." As of May 2026, Haemonetics is an active, publicly-traded operating company.

Assignment timeline

An online search of the USPTO Patent Assignment Search database for US patent 11,738,124 shows the following recorded assignments.

• 2022-09-08 (executed) / recorded 2022-09-13 — Reel 061077/0173
  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Michael Ragusa
  • Assignee: Haemonetics Corporation
  • Correspondent: Matthew F. Lambrinos, Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C., 600 Atlantic Avenue, Boston, MA 02210
  • Context: Standard assignment of interest from an inventor to their employer.
• 2025-02-11 (executed) / recorded 2025-02-19 — Reel 065163/0746
  • Conveyance: Corrective Assignment
  • Assignor: Michael Ragusa
  • Assignee: Haemonetics Corporation
  • Correspondent: Matthew F. Lambrinos, Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C., 600 Atlantic Avenue, Boston, MA 02210. The correspondent is the same as in the original assignment.
  • Context: A corrective action to the original assignment, confirming the transfer to the original assignee.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11738124
    2017 : Priority Date
    2022 : Assigned to Haemonetics Corp
    2023 : Patent Issued
    2025 : Corrective assignment filed
         : Litigation initiated

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer: Not present. The patent was assigned from the inventor directly to Haemonetics Corporation, a publicly-traded medical device company, which remains the current owner.
2. Known asserter in the chain: Not present. Haemonetics Corporation is an operating company, not a known NPE or patent assertion entity.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain: Not present. The same correspondent, Matthew F. Lambrinos of Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C., appears on both the initial assignment (Reel 061077/0173) and the corrective assignment (Reel 065163/0746). This is standard practice for a company's outside counsel handling related filings and does not indicate NPE activity.
4. Cascading transfers: Not present. The ownership chain consists of a single inventor-to-company transfer and a subsequent correction.
5. Pre-litigation transfer: Not present. The initial assignment from the inventor to the company was recorded in September 2022, well before the litigation noted in 2025. This transfer establishes the company's standing to sue and is not a transfer to a third-party assertion entity.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale: Not present. Haemonetics Corporation is a financially solvent, active company.
7. Privateering: Not present. The patent is being asserted by the original assignee, an operating company.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE): Not present. The patent remains with its original corporate assignee.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion

The patent's ownership has remained with the original assignee, Haemonetics Corporation, a major medical technology company that manufactures and sells products in the field of the invention. The assignment history shows only a standard transfer from the inventor to his employer. The subsequent litigation is an example of an operating company asserting its patents directly, not an action by an NPE.

Verification link: USPTO Assignment Search for US 11738124