Assignment history

Inventors

• Mark Raymond Pace
• Brooks Cash Talley

The patent was filed by the inventors as individuals, and no corporate assignee was named on the issued patent. There is no information in the record to suggest they were employed by a single entity at the time of filing or that they departed an employer around the filing date.

Original assignee

The patent was originally assigned to the inventors themselves, Mark Raymond Pace and Brooks Cash Talley. There is no evidence that the inventors or a company they formed ever commercialized a product embodying the claims of the patent.

Assignment timeline

• 2006-08-23 (executed) / recorded 2006-09-18 — Reel 017997/0118

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Mark Raymond Pace and Brooks Cash Talley
  • Assignee: Terranco, Limited Liability Company
  • Correspondent: James J. Korty, Heim, Payne & Chastain, L.L.P., 600 Travis, Suite 6710, Houston, TX 77002
  • Context: The inventors transferred the patent to a holding company, a common first step before licensing or sale.

• 2010-12-07 (recorded) — Reel 025539/0789

  • Conveyance: Merger
  • Assignor: Terranco, Limited Liability Company
  • Assignee: Intellectual Ventures I LLC
  • Correspondent: Intellectual Ventures, Attn: IP Docketing, 717 Bellevue Ave NE, Bellevue, WA 98004
  • Context: The patent was acquired by a major patent assertion entity as part of a merger involving the prior holding company.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6460050
    1999 : Filed by inventors Pace and Talley
    2002 : Issued
    2006 : Assigned to Terranco LLC
    2010 : Acquired by Intellectual Ventures I LLC
         : First infringement suit filed vs Symantec

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Present. The inventors first transferred the patent to Terranco, Limited Liability Company (Reel 017997/0118), a holding entity, which then transferred it to Intellectual Ventures I LLC (Reel 025539/0789).

2. Known asserter in the chain — Present. The current assignee of record is Intellectual Ventures I LLC (Reel 025539/0789), one of the most widely recognized patent assertion entities (NPEs).

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Not present. The two recorded assignments list different correspondents.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. The transfers occurred approximately four years apart.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Present. The assignment to Intellectual Ventures I LLC was recorded on 2010-12-07 (Reel 025539/0789). The first infringement lawsuit on this patent, Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp., was filed the very next day on 2010-12-08 in the District of Delaware (Case 1:10-cv-01067). This timing indicates the transfer was recorded to perfect legal standing immediately before litigation commenced.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. There is no evidence of a bankruptcy proceeding in the assignment chain.

7. Privateering — Not present. The original assignors were the inventors, not an operating company offloading patents for assertion against its competitors.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain terminates with a known patent assertion entity.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence

The assignment chain shows a clear and deliberate path to monetization through assertion, not commercialization. The patent was moved from the inventors to a holding company (Terranco, LLC) and then acquired by Intellectual Ventures, a well-known NPE (Reel 025539/0789). The final assignment was recorded just one day before the first lawsuit was filed, demonstrating a clear intent to litigate.

Verification link: USPTO Assignment Search for US 6460050