Patent 11900016

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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Ownership chain (1)

Asserters network →

Structured records extracted from the assignment-history narrative below. Each entity links to its full ownership-network profile.

  1. 2025-12-19 · Reassignment

    DENTON, LevaughnZOPHONOS INC.

    pre-litigation transfer

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

Levaughn Denton. Employer at time of filing is not determinable from the patent text.

Original assignee

The original assignee, as listed on the patent, is "Individual". Given this, it is not possible to determine if a product embodying the claims was shipped, their primary line of business, or their current status. The Google Patents legal status section indicates the current assignee is Zophonos Inc.

Assignment timeline

There are no assignment records for US11900016 on the USPTO Patent Assignment Search database beyond the initial assignment to Zophonos Inc. recorded on 2025-12-19.

Here's the information from Google Patents:

  • 2025-12-19 (executed) / recorded YYYY-MM-DD (not specified) — Reel not specified
    • Conveyance: Reassignment
    • Assignor: DENTON, Levaughn
    • Assignee: ZOPHONOS INC.
    • Correspondent: Not specified in Google Patents.
    • Context: Transfer from individual inventor to an entity.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11900016
    2014 : Priority date claimed
    2021 : Application filed by Individual
    2024 : Patent granted
    2025 : Assigned to Zophonos Inc.

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — Unclear. The assignment from an individual inventor to "Zophonos Inc." could be a transfer to a shell entity, but without further information on Zophonos Inc.'s operations or registered agent address, it is unclear.

  2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Zophonos Inc. is not a publicly known NPE as per available data.

  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear. The correspondent information is not available for the recorded assignment on Google Patents.

  4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Only one assignment is noted in the provided information.

  5. Pre-litigation transfer — Present. A US case was filed in the Texas Eastern District Court (case 2:25-cv-00752). The assignment to Zophonos Inc. was recorded on 2025-12-19, and the litigation was filed on 2025-12-19. This falls within the 6-month window before litigation.

  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No indication of bankruptcy.

  7. Privateering — Unclear. Without more information on Zophonos Inc. and its relationship with the inventor, it's impossible to determine if this is privateering.

  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The current assignee is not a known defensive aggregator.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence. The transfer to Zophonos Inc. and the simultaneous filing of litigation on the same day (2025-12-19) is a strong indicator of a pre-litigation transfer, which is a common NPE pattern. However, without further information regarding Zophonos Inc.'s operations or its nature as a shell entity, a high confidence verdict cannot be made.

For verification, see the USPTO Assignment Center search page: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 11900016).

Generated 5/26/2026, 6:48:18 AM