Patent 12016580

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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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

  • Richard Quick
  • Benjamin Edward Merritt
  • John Coleman Thress
  • Paul Lubock
  • Thomas M. Tu

The patent does not provide information on the inventors' employers at the time of filing or their current employment status. Therefore, it is not possible to note any unusual patterns regarding their departure from an original assignee.

Original assignee

The original assignee listed is Inari Medical Inc. [cite: US12016580B2].

Inari Medical Inc. is a medical device company that develops products for treating venous diseases. They ship products embodying the claims of US12016580B2, which relates to systems and methods for the intravascular treatment of clot material, specifically for pulmonary embolism. Inari Medical Inc. is currently an operating company.

Assignment timeline

There are no recorded assignments for US12016580 found in the USPTO Assignment Center search as of 2026-05-19. The Google Patents legal events section indicates "Assigned to INCEPTUS MEDICAL, LLC" on 2022-10-07 and "Assigned to Inari Medical, Inc." on 2022-10-07, and "Assigned to Inari Medical, Inc." on 2024-01-25. However, these appear to be reassignments involving the inventors and Inceptus Medical, LLC, ultimately leading back to Inari Medical, Inc. as the current assignee. Since these events are not reflected in the USPTO Assignment Center, they are not detailed here as recorded assignments.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 12016580
    2018 : Priority date
    2021 : Application filed by Inari Medical Inc
    2022 : Publication of US20220240959A1
    2024 : Publication & Grant of US12016580B2

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The patent remains with Inari Medical Inc., an operating company.
  2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Inari Medical Inc. is not identified as a known NPE.
  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. There are no recorded assignments in the USPTO Assignment Center to establish a chain or identify repeat correspondents.
  4. Cascading transfers — not present. No assignments are recorded in the USPTO Assignment Center.
  5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear. While there are district court and PTAB litigations noted, no assignment records are present in the USPTO Assignment Center to determine if a transfer occurred within 6 months prior to the first infringement suit.
  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. There is no indication of Inari Medical Inc. undergoing bankruptcy proceedings.
  7. Privateering — not present. There is no evidence of Inari Medical Inc. transferring the patent to an NPE for assertion on its behalf.
  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The patent is currently assigned to Inari Medical Inc., not a defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion. The patent is currently assigned to Inari Medical Inc., an operating company in the medical device field that manufactures and sells products related to the claimed technology. The detected litigation (PTAB case IPR2025-01264 and US case 5:24-cv-03117 in California Northern District Court) suggests assertion by the operating company, likely against competitors. [cite: US12016580B2]

Verification: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search for patent number 12016580).

Generated 5/19/2026, 12:47:18 PM