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

All nine named inventors—Mark S. Feddema, William J. Snell, Sachie Kakehi, Steven B. Balinski, David Jason Brightbill, Joseph T. Ferencevich, Sujit S. Naik, Frederick Thomas Roderick, and Ryan Kevin Roth—were likely employed by Whirlpool Corp. at the time of filing, as Whirlpool Corp. is listed as the original assignee of the patent. No information suggests any unusual patterns of departure from the original assignee.

Original assignee

The entity named on the issued patent is Whirlpool Corp. Whirlpool Corp. is a multinational manufacturer and marketer of home appliances, a primary line of business that includes dishwashers. As a major appliance manufacturer, Whirlpool Corp. produces and ships products embodying the claims of this patent. Whirlpool Corp. is currently an operating company.

Assignment timeline

The USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) has no recorded assignments for U.S. Patent 12,543,922. The "Original Assignee" and "Current Assignee" fields on Google Patents both list Whirlpool Corp, indicating that the patent has remained with the original assignee since its filing.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 12543922
    2020 : Filed by Whirlpool Corp (priority date)
    2025 : Application filed by Whirlpool Corp
    2026 : Issued to Whirlpool Corp

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The patent remains with Whirlpool Corp., a large operating company.
Known asserter in the chain — Not present. The patent is held by Whirlpool Corp., not a known NPE.
Repeat correspondent across the chain — Not present. There are no recorded assignments for this patent number, so no correspondent chain to analyze.
Cascading transfers — Not present. No transfers are recorded.
Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No litigation has been identified, and no transfers are recorded.
Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. Whirlpool Corp. is an active, operating company.
Privateering — Not present. The patent remains with the original operating company.
Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The patent is with Whirlpool Corp., not a defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion

The verdict is "Operating-company assertion" because the patent is currently assigned to Whirlpool Corp., a well-known operating company that manufactures and sells products directly related to the patent's claims. There are no recorded assignments for this patent number in the USPTO Assignment Center, indicating that ownership has not transferred since its issuance to the original assignee.

For verification, see the USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by Patent Number: 12543922).