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.

Assignment history

Inventors

The named inventors are:

Brian Michael Green
Michelle Lorraine Gradley

Both inventors were employed by BASF SE at the time of the original priority application filing (March 2, 2016), as BASF SE is listed as both the Original Assignee and Current Assignee of the patent.

Original assignee

The entity named on the issued patent US12305206 is BASF SE. BASF SE is a large multinational chemical company. Their primary line of business includes chemicals, plastics, performance products, functional materials & solutions, agricultural solutions, and oil & gas. They produce and sell glufosinate herbicides, which embody the claims of this patent concerning improved methods for making L-glufosinate. BASF SE is currently an operating company.

Assignment timeline

There are no assignment records for patent number US12305206 found on the USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/). This indicates that the patent has likely remained with the original assignee, BASF SE, since its grant.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 12305206
    2016 : Priority filed by BASF SE
    2025 : Issued to BASF SE

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Shell-entity transfer — Not present. There are no recorded assignment transfers to any entity.
Known asserter in the chain — Not present. There are no recorded assignment transfers to any entity, and the current owner, BASF SE, is an operating company.
Repeat correspondent across the chain — Not present. No assignments are recorded, thus no correspondent information is available to identify recurrence.
Cascading transfers — Not present. No assignments are recorded.
Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No assignments are recorded. The PGR proceeding (PGR2026-00026) was filed on February 20, 2026, and no assignments occurred within six months prior to this date.
Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. BASF SE is an active, operating company and there is no indication of bankruptcy or patent sale in such proceedings.
Privateering — Not present. There is no evidence of transfer to an NPE for assertion on behalf of an operating company.
Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The patent remains with BASF SE, an operating company, and has not been transferred to a defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Insufficient data. There are no assignment records available on the USPTO Assignment Center for US12305206. Therefore, no ownership chain can be reconstructed or analyzed for NPE/troll patterns. The patent appears to remain with the original assignee, BASF SE.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (Search for patent number 12305206).