Assignment history

Inventors

• Andrew Sharp (Brook & Whittle Ltd)
• Mitchell J. Morgan (Brook & Whittle Ltd)

Original assignee

Brook & Whittle Ltd. is a provider of technically advanced and sustainable label and packaging solutions for various industries including personal care, home care, food and beverage, and nutraceuticals. They ship products embodying the claims, specifically recyclable heat shrink films for containers.
Current Status: Operating.

Assignment timeline

• 2025-08-11 (executed) / recorded 2025-08-11 — Reel 059952/0150

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Brook & Whittle Limited
  • Assignee: UBS AG, STAMFORD BRANCH
  • Correspondent: Law Office of Daniel A. S. Burger, C/O Ropes & Gray LLP, PRD, 800 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02199.
  • Context: Securitization (granting a security interest in the patent as collateral for a loan).

• 2025-09-25 (executed) / recorded 2025-09-25 — Reel 060049/0517

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: Morgan, Mitchell J.; Sharp, Andrew
  • Assignee: Brook & Whittle Limited
  • Correspondent: NIXON PEABODY LLP, 200 STATE STREET, BOSTON, MA 02109-2703.
  • Context: Internal reorg (inventors formally assigned their rights to the original assignee).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11961422
    2023 : Application filed by Brook & Whittle Ltd
    2024 : Issued to Brook & Whittle Ltd
    2025 : Security interest to UBS AG
         : Inventors assign to Brook & Whittle

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The assignor in the security agreement and the ultimate assignee from the inventors (Brook & Whittle Limited) are consistent with an operating company.
2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. UBS AG is a financial institution, not a known patent asserter. Brook & Whittle Ltd. is an operating company.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. The two recorded assignments have different correspondents: Ropes & Gray LLP for the security agreement and Nixon Peabody LLP for the assignment from the inventors.
4. Cascading transfers — not present. Only two assignments are recorded, and they are not consecutive transfers through chained LLCs within a short timeframe. The assignment from inventors to the company is a standard procedure.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear. While there are litigation cases filed in 2024 (before the recorded assignments), the recorded assignments themselves are from 2025. It's unclear if the 2025 assignments were specifically in preparation for litigation that started in 2024, or if the litigation started with the original assignee.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. There is no indication of bankruptcy proceedings for Brook & Whittle Ltd.
7. Privateering — not present. The known assignees are not typical privateering entities, and there's no indication of such an arrangement in the public record.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at a known defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Insufficient data. While litigation has been filed involving this patent, the recorded assignment chain primarily shows a security interest being granted to a bank and the formal assignment of inventor rights to the original operating company. There are no clear signals of a transfer to a shell entity, a known NPE, or cascading transfers that would indicate a typical NPE pattern. Further analysis of the litigants in the identified cases (e.g., Unified Patents litigation in Delaware and Texas) would be needed to determine if an NPE is involved as a plaintiff, but this is beyond the scope of the assignment records themselves.

Verification: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (Search for patent number 11961422).