Patent 12569490

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.

Active provider: Google · gemini-2.5-flash

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

Original assignee

Spruce Biosciences Inc. is the original assignee named on the issued patent US12569490B2. Spruce Biosciences Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel therapies for rare endocrine disorders. While the patent describes methods for treating testicular and ovarian adrenal rest tumors (TART/OART) using a CRF1 antagonist, Compound 1, which may be tildacerfont, Spruce Biosciences' primary product candidate, tildacerfont, is currently in clinical trials for congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). It is unclear from the patent text alone whether Spruce Biosciences Inc. has shipped a commercial product embodying the claims of this specific patent. As of my last update, Spruce Biosciences Inc. is an operating company.

Assignment timeline

As of my search on the USPTO Assignment Center, there are no recorded post-issuance assignments for US patent 12569490. The Google Patents legal events indicate a reassignment on 2026-01-12 to AVENUE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT II, L.P.. This appears to be a security interest, as indicated by SEC filings for Spruce Biosciences Inc. (e.g., Form 8-K filings from October 2025 and January 2026, which discuss loan and security agreements where company assets, including intellectual property, are pledged as collateral). However, this security interest is not typically recorded as a full assignment of ownership in the USPTO Assignment Center in the same way a transfer of title would be.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 12569490
    2025-01-31 : Filed by Spruce Biosciences Inc
    2026-01-12 : Security Interest to Avenue Capital Management II, L.P.
    2026-03-10 : Issued to Spruce Biosciences Inc

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The primary assignee is Spruce Biosciences Inc., an operating biopharmaceutical company. The listed current assignee, AVENUE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT II, L.P., is identified as holding a security interest, not an outright transfer of ownership to a shell entity for licensing purposes.

  2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Neither Spruce Biosciences Inc. nor AVENUE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT II, L.P. are commonly listed as known patent assertion entities (PAEs) or "patent trolls." AVENUE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT II, L.P. is a financial firm.

  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. Since no formal assignment records are found on the USPTO Assignment Center, there is no correspondent chain to analyze for repetition.

  4. Cascading transfers — not present. There are no recorded assignments in the USPTO Assignment Center. The Google Patents entry for a security interest is a single event.

  5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No litigation is identified for this patent, and therefore no pre-litigation transfer can be observed.

  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. There is no indication that Spruce Biosciences Inc. has filed for bankruptcy. The security interest with AVENUE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT II, L.P. is related to a loan and security agreement, not a bankruptcy proceeding.

  7. Privateering — unclear. While a security interest is noted, there's no evidence to suggest this patent has been transferred to an NPE to assert on behalf of Spruce Biosciences Inc. against competitors.

  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The patent is not currently held by a known defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion (current assignee ships products embodying the claims and is suing actual competitors)

The patent is currently assigned to Spruce Biosciences Inc., an operating biopharmaceutical company, with a security interest held by AVENUE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT II, L.P.. There are no recorded post-issuance assignments in the USPTO Assignment Center to suggest a transfer to a patent assertion entity. The "Family has litigation" flag in Google Patents links to a Darts-ip page, but the specific litigation details are not immediately accessible, nor does it specify if Spruce Biosciences Inc. is an asserter.

USPTO Assignment Center search page: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

Generated 6/19/2026, 12:46:43 AM