Assignment history

Inventors

• Ben Merritt
• Jacqueline Macias
• Brian Michael Strauss
• Thomas Tu
• John Coleman Thress
• Paul Lubock

All inventors were associated with the original assignee, Inari Medical, Inc., at the time of filing. Publicly available professional history for the inventors shows continued employment with Inari Medical or other operating companies in the medical device sector, with no unusual patterns of departure noted.

Original assignee

Inari Medical, Inc. The company develops and commercializes catheter-based mechanical thrombectomy devices for treating venous thromboembolism. Its products, including the FlowTriever and ClotTriever systems, appear to embody the technologies claimed in the patent. Inari Medical, Inc. is an active, publicly-traded operating company (NASDAQ: NARI).

Assignment timeline

A search of the USPTO Patent Assignment Search database for US Patent 11,969,333 reveals three assignments recorded.

• 2023-12-07 (executed) / recorded 2023-12-12 — Reel 066795/0507

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT
  • Assignor: TU, THOMAS
  • Assignee: INARI MEDICAL, INC. (California, USA)
  • Correspondent: KNOBBE, MARTENS, OLSON & BEAR, LLP, 2040 MAIN STREET, 14TH FLOOR, IRVINE, CA 92614
  • Context: This appears to be a standard pre-issuance assignment of invention from an inventor to their employer, Inari Medical.

• 2023-12-07 (executed) / recorded 2023-12-12 — Reel 066795/0511

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT
  • Assignor: MACIAS, JACQUELINE; MERRITT, BEN; STRAUSS, BRIAN MICHAEL
  • Assignee: INARI MEDICAL, INC. (California, USA)
  • Correspondent: KNOBBE, MARTENS, OLSON & BEAR, LLP, 2040 MAIN STREET, 14TH FLOOR, IRVINE, CA 92614
  • Context: This appears to be a standard pre-issuance assignment of invention from inventors to their employer, Inari Medical. The correspondent is the same as the previous entry.

• 2024-06-25 (executed) / recorded 2024-08-08 — Reel 069248/0348

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT
  • Assignor: LUBOCK, PAUL; THRESS, JOHN COLEMAN
  • Assignee: INARI MEDICAL, INC. (California, USA)
  • Correspondent: Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear, LLP, 2040 Main Street, 14th Floor, Irvine, CA, 92614
  • Context: This is another standard pre-issuance assignment of invention from the remaining inventors to their employer, Inari Medical, Inc. The correspondent is the same as the previous entries.

All recorded assignments are from the named inventors directly to Inari Medical, Inc., their employer. There is no evidence of the patent being transferred to any other entity.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11969333
    2023 : Application filed
         : Inventors assign to Inari Medical
    2024 : Patent Issued to Inari Medical
         : Remaining inventors assign to Inari Medical

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer: Not present. The patent has only been assigned from the inventors to their employer, Inari Medical, Inc., an active operating company.
2. Known asserter in the chain: Not present. The sole assignee, Inari Medical, Inc., is a product company, not a known NPE.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain: Not present. The correspondent, Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear, LLP, is a well-known, large law firm that represents many operating companies in patent prosecution and is not primarily associated with NPEs. The firm's consistent use across these standard inventor assignments is normal practice.
4. Cascading transfers: Not present. The only transfers were from the inventors to their company.
5. Pre-litigation transfer: Not present. The litigation noted in the case history was filed by Inari Medical, Inc., the original assignee, against a competitor. There was no transfer to a third party for the purpose of litigation.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale: Not present.
7. Privateering: Not present.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE): Not present.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion

The patent was developed internally at Inari Medical, Inc. and has remained with the company since its issuance. The ongoing litigation was initiated by Inari Medical, which actively develops and sells products in the medical device market directly related to the patent's subject matter. This is a classic case of an operating company enforcing its intellectual property against a market competitor.

Verification Link: USPTO Patent Assignment Search for US 11969333