Assignment history

Inventors

• Ben Merritt: Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Inari Medical, Inc.
• Jacqueline Macias: Principal R&D Engineer, Inari Medical, Inc.
• Brian Michael Strauss: Co-Founder & Chief Medical Officer, Inari Medical, Inc.
• Thomas Tu: Attending Physician, Baptist Health Louisville (previously affiliated with Inari Medical as a consultant/advisor).
• John Coleman Thress: Director of R&D, Inari Medical, Inc.
• Paul Lubock: No public affiliation with Inari Medical found at the time of filing; appears to be an independent inventor.

All inventors, with the exception of Paul Lubock, were directly employed by or closely associated with the original assignee, Inari Medical, Inc., at the time of the invention. There are no unusual patterns of departure noted.

Original Assignee

The original assignee is Inari Medical, Inc., a publicly traded medical device company headquartered in Irvine, California. Inari Medical specializes in developing and commercializing devices for treating venous diseases, including venous thromboembolism (VTE). The company's key products, the FlowTriever and ClotTriever systems, are directly related to the subject matter of US Patent 11,974,910, which covers systems for treating embolisms. Inari Medical is an active, operating company that manufactures and sells products that appear to embody the claims of this patent.

Assignment Timeline

A search of the USPTO Patent Assignment Search database for US Patent 11,974,910 reveals the following recorded assignments:

• 2023-08-30 (executed) / 2023-09-06 (recorded) — Reel 063665 / Frame 0682

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
  • Assignor: TU, THOMAS
  • Assignee: INARI MEDICAL, INC. (California, USA)
  • Correspondent: KNOBBE, MARTENS, OLSON & BEAR, LLP, 2040 MAIN STREET, 14TH FLOOR, IRVINE, CA 92614
  • Context: Formal assignment from an individual inventor to the operating company.

• 2023-08-30 (executed) / 2023-09-06 (recorded) — Reel 063665 / Frame 0677

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
  • 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: Formal assignment from a group of inventors to the operating company.

• 2024-07-31 (executed) / 2024-08-09 (recorded) — Reel 066779 / Frame 0430

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
  • 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: Formal assignment from the remaining inventors to the operating company.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11974910
    2018 : Priority Date
    2023 : Inventors assign to Inari Medical
    2024 : Remaining inventors assign to Inari Medical
         : Patent Granted

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer: Not present. The patent has only been assigned from the inventors to the original operating company, Inari Medical, Inc.
2. Known asserter in the chain: Not present. The only assignee, Inari Medical, Inc., is a publicly traded medical device manufacturer, not a known patent assertion entity.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain: Not present. The same law firm, Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear, LLP, handled all the initial assignments from the inventors to the company. This is standard practice for a company consolidating its IP portfolio from its employees and is not an indicator of NPE activity.
4. Cascading transfers: Not present.
5. Pre-litigation transfer: Not present. The assignments on record are from the inventors to their employer, which is standard procedure, not a transfer to a third-party for litigation purposes.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale: Not present.
7. Privateering: Not present.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE): Not present.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion

Inari Medical, Inc., the original and current assignee, is a medical device manufacturer that develops and sells products in the field of the invention. All recorded assignments are standard inventor-to-employer transfers. The litigation involving this patent appears to be a case of an operating company asserting its intellectual property against a direct competitor, not NPE-style activity.

You can verify the assignment records at the USPTO Patent Assignment Search page.