Patent 12166869

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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Ownership chain (4)

Asserters network →

Structured records extracted from the assignment-history narrative below. Each entity links to its full ownership-network profile.

  1. 2023-11-02 · reel 059639/0816 · Assignment

    NIX, JOHNM2M AND IOT TECHNOLOGIES, LLC

    Correspondent: B.J. BLASBALG

    Transfer-to-asserter

  2. 2023-11-03 · reel 059640/0173 · Assignment

    VOBAL TECHNOLOGIES, LLCNIX, JOHN A.

    Correspondent: B.J. BLASBALG

    Internal transfer

  3. 2023-11-06 · reel 059640/0398 · Assignment

    M2M AND IOT TECHNOLOGIES, LLCNETWORK-1 TECHNOLOGIES, INC.

    Correspondent: B.J. BLASBALG

    Transfer between related entities

  4. 2025-09-10 · reel 062758/0178 · Change of Name

    NETWORK-1 TECHNOLOGIES, INC.NETWORK-1 TECHNOLOGIES, INC.

    Correspondent: JOHN M. D'ALESSANDRI

    Change of address for existing assignee.

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.

✓ Generated

Inventors

John A. Nix (employer at time of filing not determinable from the provided patent text).

Original assignee

Network 1 Technologies Inc. It is unclear from the provided text whether Network 1 Technologies Inc. shipped a product embodying the claims. Their primary line of business, based on their frequent appearance in patent assignment records, appears to be patent monetization and licensing. Their current status is "Active" according to Google Patents.

Assignment timeline

  • 2023-11-02 (executed) / recorded 2023-11-02 — Reel 059639/0816

    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: NIX, JOHN
    • Assignee: M2M AND IOT TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
    • Correspondent: B.J. BLASBALG, 540 Madison Avenue, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10022. This correspondent recurs frequently in patent assignment records for NPEs.
    • Context: Transfer-to-asserter

  • 2023-11-03 (executed) / recorded 2023-11-03 — Reel 059640/0173

    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: VOBAL TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
    • Assignee: NIX, JOHN A.
    • Correspondent: B.J. BLASBALG, 540 Madison Avenue, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10022. This correspondent recurs frequently in patent assignment records for NPEs.
    • Context: Internal transfer

  • 2023-11-06 (executed) / recorded 2023-11-06 — Reel 059640/0398

    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: M2M AND IOT TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
    • Assignee: NETWORK-1 TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    • Correspondent: B.J. BLASBALG, 540 Madison Avenue, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10022. This correspondent recurs frequently in patent assignment records for NPEs.
    • Context: Transfer between related entities

  • 2025-09-10 (executed) / recorded 2025-09-10 — Reel 062758/0178

    • Conveyance: Change of Name
    • Assignor: NETWORK-1 TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    • Assignee: NETWORK-1 TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    • Correspondent: JOHN M. D'ALESSANDRI, 12050 Research Blvd., Suite 200, Austin, TX 78759.
    • Context: Change of address for existing assignee.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 12166869
    2013 : Priority date claimed
    2023 : Application filed by Network 1
    2023 : Assigned to M2M IoT Technologies LLC
    2023 : Assigned to John A Nix
    2023 : Assigned to Network-1 Tech Inc
    2024 : Patent granted
    2025 : Network-1 Technologies change of address

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — present. The transfer from John Nix to M2M AND IOT TECHNOLOGIES, LLC (Reel 059639/0816) and subsequently to NETWORK-1 TECHNOLOGIES, INC. (Reel 059640/0398) suggests shell entities. M2M AND IOT TECHNOLOGIES, LLC has a name suggesting a single-purpose entity, and Network 1 Technologies Inc. is a known patent licensing company.
  2. Known asserter in the chain — present. Network 1 Technologies Inc. is a publicly known patent licensing and monetization company.
  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — present. B.J. Blasbalg is the correspondent for the assignments on Reel 059639/0816, Reel 059640/0173, and Reel 059640/0398. This indicates a consistent legal representative across multiple transfers within a short period.
  4. Cascading transfers — present. There are three consecutive assignments within a few days in November 2023 (Reel 059639/0816, Reel 059640/0173, Reel 059640/0398), indicating rapid movement of the patent between entities.
  5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear. While the initial assignments occurred in November 2023 and the patent was granted in December 2024, the earliest litigation mentioned in the Google Patents record is IPR2026-00117 filed in 2026, which is more than six months after the November 2023 assignments. However, the exact date of the first infringement suit for this specific patent is not definitively provided in the given context.
  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No indication in the provided text or Google Patents legal events suggests a bankruptcy sale.
  7. Privateering — unclear. There is no information in the provided context to suggest an operating company transferred the patent to an NPE to assert on its behalf.
  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at any known defensive aggregators.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence. The presence of Network 1 Technologies Inc., a known patent asserter, in the ownership chain, combined with cascading transfers between what appear to be shell entities (M2M AND IOT TECHNOLOGIES, LLC), and the consistent use of the same correspondent attorney (B.J. Blasbalg) for these transfers (Reel 059639/0816, Reel 059640/0173, Reel 059640/0398), strongly indicates an NPE pattern.

Verification: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

Generated 5/26/2026, 6:48:42 PM