Assignment history

Inventors

• Fabio Fasoli
• Roberto Millone

Both inventors assigned their rights to Danieli & C. Officine Meccaniche S.p.A. at the time of filing, as is standard practice for employee-inventors. A search of other patents confirms both individuals were prolific inventors for Danieli. There are no unusual patterns suggesting departure from the assignee post-filing.

Original assignee

The original assignee of record is Danieli & C. Officine Meccaniche S.p.A., an Italian company. Danieli is a major global supplier of plant and equipment to the metals industry, particularly for steel manufacturing. Their primary business directly involves the technology described in the patent, such as heating furnaces for steel slabs used in rolling lines. The company is still a major operating entity today and actively commercializes technology of this type.

Assignment timeline

A search of the USPTO Patent Assignment Search database reveals only the initial, pre-issuance assignment from the inventors to their employer. No subsequent assignments have been recorded for this patent.

• 1996-06-21 (executed) / recorded 1996-09-12 — Reel 008187/0376
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: Fabio Fasoli; Roberto Millone
  • Assignee: Danieli & C. Officine Meccaniche S.p.A.
  • Correspondent: Antonelli, Terry, & Stout; Houston, TX
  • Context: Standard assignment from inventors to their employer, recorded on the patent's filing date.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5708678
    1995 : Priority date
    1996 : Filed by inventors
         : Assigned to Danieli & C SpA
    1998 : Issued
    2006 : Lapsed for non-payment of fee

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer: Not present. The only recorded assignee is Danieli & C. Officine Meccaniche S.p.A., the original operating company.

2. Known asserter in the chain: Not present. Danieli is a manufacturing and engineering company, not a known patent asserter.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain: Not present. There is only a single recorded assignment.

4. Cascading transfers: Not present.

5. Pre-litigation transfer: Not present. The only transfer occurred at the time of filing, and no litigation involving this patent is known.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale: Not present. Danieli has remained a continuously operating and solvent company.

7. Privateering: Not present. There is no evidence of a transfer to a third-party asserter.

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

Verdict

Insufficient data

The USPTO assignment records show only the initial assignment from the inventors to their employer, Danieli & C. Officine Meccaniche S.p.A., at the time of filing. There is no public record of the patent ever changing hands. Furthermore, the patent's legal status is "Expired - Fee Related," with USPTO records indicating it lapsed on January 13, 2006, for failure to pay maintenance fees. This strongly suggests the patent was held by the original operating company for its entire effective life and was not valued highly enough to maintain, making any assertion activity extremely unlikely.

A verification link for the assignment records can be found at the USPTO Assignment Search for US5708678.