Patent 7267820

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.

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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

  • Angela Vincent (Max Planck Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Wissenschaften eV, Oxford University Innovation Ltd)
  • Werner Hoch (Max Planck Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Wissenschaften eV, Oxford University Innovation Ltd)

Original assignee

The original assignees named on the issued patent US7267820 are Max Planck Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Wissenschaften eV and Oxford University Innovation Ltd. Oxford University Innovation Ltd (formerly Isis Innovation Limited) is the research commercialisation company for the University of Oxford. Max Planck Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Wissenschaften eV is a German non-profit research organization. Both are primarily involved in academic research and technology transfer. It is unclear if they shipped a product embodying the claims directly. Both entities are currently operating.

Assignment timeline

  • 2003-01-29 to 2003-02-18 (executed) / recorded 2003-06-06 — Reel 014136/0282

    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: VINCENT, ANGELA; HOCH, WERNER
    • Assignee: ISIS INNOVATION LIMITED
    • Correspondent: HOOVER, ALLISON C, BIRCH STEWART KOLASCH & BIRCH, LLP, PO BOX 747, FALLS CHURCH, VA, 22040-0747
    • Context: Transfer of inventors' interest to an innovation commercialization company.

  • 2004-06-10 to 2004-06-15 (executed) / recorded 2004-06-18 — Reel 014756/0557

    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: VINCENT, ANGELA; HOCH, WERNER
    • Assignee: MAX-PLANCK GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN E.V., ISIS INNOVATION LIMITED
    • Correspondent: HOOVER, ALLISON C, BIRCH STEWART KOLASCH & BIRCH, LLP, PO BOX 747, FALLS CHURCH, VA, 22040-0747. This correspondent also appears on reel 014136/0282.
    • Context: Reassignment of inventors' interest to include Max Planck Gesellschaft.

  • 2004-06-09 (executed) / recorded 2004-06-18 — Reel 014757/0964

    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: ISIS INNOVATION LIMITED
    • Assignee: VINCENT, ANGELA, ENGLAND; HOCH, WERNER, TEXAS
    • Correspondent: HOOVER, ALLISON C, BIRCH STEWART KOLASCH & BIRCH, LLP, PO BOX 747, FALLS CHURCH, VA, 22040-0747. This correspondent also appears on reel 014136/0282 and 014756/0557.
    • Context: Reassignment of a partial interest back to the inventors.

  • 2016-06-16 (executed) / recorded 2016-08-02 — Reel 039550/0045

    • Conveyance: Change of Name
    • Assignor: ISIS INNOVATION LIMITED
    • Assignee: OXFORD UNIVERSITY INNOVATION LIMITED
    • Correspondent: None listed.
    • Context: Change of name for one of the assignees.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7267820
    2001 : Patent filed
    2003 : Inventors assign to ISIS Innovation
    2004 : Inventors assign to Max Planck & ISIS
         : ISIS Innovation assigns to Inventors
    2007 : Patent issued
    2015 : MA District Court litigation filed
    2016 : ISIS Innovation name changed to Oxford Univ Innovation
    2017 : CAFC litigation filed
    2019 : US Supreme Court litigation filed
    2022 : Patent expired

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The assignees are academic and research institutions or the individual inventors, not shell entities.
  2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. None of the listed assignees match known NPE lists.
  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — present. Allison C. Hoover of Birch, Stewart, Kolasch & Birch, LLP, is listed as the correspondent on reel 014136/0282, 014756/0557, and 014757/0964.
  4. Cascading transfers — not present. The transfers in 2004 involved the same parties and occurred on the same day, indicating an internal adjustment rather than a rapid succession of transfers to different entities.
  5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear. The provided information states that the Massachusetts District Court litigation (4:15-cv-40075 and 1:15-cv-40075) was filed in 2015. However, the last assignment listed is a change of name in 2016. No transfer occurred within six months of the litigation filing.
  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No indication of bankruptcy for any of the assignors.
  7. Privateering — not present. No evidence in the assignment records or provided context suggests privateering.
  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at any known defensive aggregators.

Verdict

Insufficient data. While there is a strong signal of a repeat correspondent across multiple assignments, this alone is not enough to confidently classify the patent owner as an NPE, especially given that the listed assignees are academic/research institutions. There are no other clear NPE signals such as shell entity transfers or known asserters in the chain. The litigation information is also not detailed enough to determine if the patent was transferred specifically for assertion purposes shortly before litigation.

Verification: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

Generated 5/29/2026, 8:37:44 PM