Patent 12186474

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 (1)

Asserters network →

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

  1. 2021-03-18 · Assignment of Assignor's Interest

    RAGUSA, MICHAELHAEMONETICS CORPORATION

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

The sole named inventor is Michael Ragusa. The patent was assigned to Haemonetics Corp on the same day the application was filed (2021-03-18), indicating Mr. Ragusa was an employee of Haemonetics at the time of invention. There are no unusual patterns noted.

Original assignee

The original and current assignee is Haemonetics Corp. Haemonetics is a publicly-traded global healthcare company specializing in blood and plasma component collection technology and services. The company actively develops, manufactures, and sells apheresis systems for plasma collection that appear to embody the claims of the patent. The company is an active operating entity.

Assignment timeline

A search of the USPTO Patent Assignment Search database for US patent 12,186,474 shows a single recorded assignment.

  • 2021-03-18 (executed) / recorded 2021-03-18
    • Note: This assignment was recorded against the application (17/205,400) which issued as this patent.
    • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest
    • Assignor: Ragusa, Michael
    • Assignee: Haemonetics Corporation
    • Correspondent: Not publicly available in the Google Patents data, but this represents a routine transfer from an inventor to their employer at the time of filing.
    • Context: Standard assignment of invention from an employee to their employer.

No other assignments have been recorded against this patent or its parent application as of 2026-05-13. The original assignee, Haemonetics Corp, remains the current owner of record.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 12186474
    2017 : Priority Date Claimed
    2021 : Application Filed
         : Assigned to Haemonetics Corp
    2025 : Patent Issued
         : Infringement suits filed by Haemonetics

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer: Not present. The patent has not been transferred from the original assignee, Haemonetics Corp, which is a large operating company.

  2. Known asserter in the chain: Not present. The sole assignee, Haemonetics Corp, is a product company, not a known NPE.

  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain: Not present. Only one assignment (from inventor to employer) is on record.

  4. Cascading transfers: Not present.

  5. Pre-litigation transfer: Not present. The litigation identified in the patent's legal history was filed in 2025, after the patent issued directly to Haemonetics Corp. The owner of record did not change prior to assertion.

  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale: Not present. Haemonetics Corp is a financially healthy, publicly-traded company.

  7. Privateering: Not present. Haemonetics Corp is asserting the patent directly, not through a third-party NPE.

  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE): Not present.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion

The patent's ownership has remained with the original assignee, Haemonetics Corp, a major manufacturer of medical devices for plasma collection. The only recorded transfer is the initial assignment from the inventor to his employer. The litigation initiated in 2025 is a direct assertion by a product-shipping company against its competitors, a classic example of operating-company assertion.

Verify at: USPTO Patent Assignment Search for US 12,186,474

Generated 5/13/2026, 12:20:44 AM