Patent 12087871

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

The named inventors for US patent 12087871 are Shih-Yuan Wang and Shih-Ping Wang. Both inventors are also co-founders of W&w Sens Devices Inc., which is the original assignee. Therefore, their employer at the time of filing was W&w Sens Devices Inc.

Original assignee

The original assignee on the issued patent is W&w Sens Devices Inc. (also known as W&Wsens Devices, Inc.). The company develops high-performance thin silicon photosensors that leverage microhole-based lightwave trapping technology to enhance speed and sensitivity in thin silicon arrays, particularly for near-infrared wavelengths. Their photosensors are integrated into products across diverse sectors, including augmented reality, facial recognition, LiDAR for ADAS, security, and medical imaging. W&w Sens Devices Inc. appears to be an active operating company, having been officially filed on November 10, 2014, and maintaining an active filing status in California. They have also raised funding, including a Series C round.

Assignment timeline

As of May 18, 2026, a search of the USPTO Patent Assignment Search database for US patent 12087871 revealed no recorded assignments for this patent. This indicates that the ownership of the patent remains with the original assignee, W&w Sens Devices Inc.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 12087871
    2013 : Priority date
    2014 : W&w Sens Devices Inc founded
    2023 : Application filed by W&w Sens Devices Inc
    2024 : Issued to W&w Sens Devices Inc
         : US case filed in EDTX
    2025 : PTAB IPR case filed

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The patent remains with W&w Sens Devices Inc., which is an operating company developing and shipping products related to the patent's claims.
  2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present as assignee. The current assignee, W&w Sens Devices Inc., is not publicly listed as a traditional NPE (e.g., Acacia, Marathon Patent Group). However, the patent is involved in a district court case in the Eastern District of Texas (2:24-cv-00854) where W&w Sens Devices Inc. is the plaintiff against Samsung. This venue is often used by NPEs, and the plaintiff is described as an "inventor-controlled plaintiff", which sometimes correlates with assertion-driven entities. Additionally, Unified Patents, an anti-NPE group, filed an IPR against this patent (IPR2025-00993), suggesting assertion activity.
  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Not present. No assignments are recorded for this patent, thus no correspondent chain to analyze.
  4. Cascading transfers — Not present. No assignments are recorded for this patent.
  5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. The patent was granted on September 10, 2024, and the district court case was filed in 2024. Since the patent remains with the original assignee, no transfer occurred prior to litigation.
  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. There is no indication of W&w Sens Devices Inc. having filed for bankruptcy.
  7. Privateering — Not present. W&w Sens Devices Inc. is asserting the patent directly.
  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. While Unified Patents (an anti-NPE organization) filed an IPR against this patent, they are the petitioner, not an assignee in the ownership chain.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion

W&w Sens Devices Inc. is an operating company that develops and markets photosensitive devices embodying the claims of US12087871. The patent is currently being asserted by the original assignee against Samsung in the Eastern District of Texas (case 2:24-cv-00854). This indicates a direct assertion by a product-shipping entity against a competitor. The IPR filed by Unified Patents against the patent further confirms its involvement in assertion, consistent with an operating company enforcing its intellectual property.

For verification, you can search the USPTO Assignment Center at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/.

Generated 5/18/2026, 6:48:55 AM