Assignment history

Inventors

• Albert G. Greenberg: Employed by AT&T Corp. at the time of filing.
• Ramana Rao Kompella: Employed by AT&T Corp. at the time of filing.
• Alex C. Snoeren: Employed by AT&T Corp. at the time of filing.
• Jennifer Yates: Employed by AT&T Corp. at the time of filing.

All named inventors assigned their interest to AT&T Corp., their employer, which is a standard practice for corporate patenting.

Original assignee

The original assignee named on the issued patent US7577099 is AT&T Corp..
AT&T Corp. is a major telecommunications company, and its primary line of business involves providing voice, video, data, and Internet services. The patent describes a "Method and apparatus for fault localization in a network," which directly relates to the operational needs and infrastructure of a telecommunications service provider like AT&T. Therefore, AT&T Corp. demonstrably shipped products and services embodying the claims within its network operations.
AT&T Corp. merged into AT&T Operations, Inc. in 2005 and remains an operating entity within the larger AT&T Inc. corporate family. The parent company, AT&T Inc., is a publicly traded, major operating telecommunications company.

Assignment timeline

The USPTO Patent Assignment Search for US7577099 reveals only one recorded assignment.

• 2006-06-28 (executed) / recorded 2009-07-14 — Reel 022953/0463
  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: GREENBERG, ALBERT G.; KOMPELLA, RAMANA RAO; SNOEREN, ALEX C.; YATES, JENNIFER
  • Assignee: AT&T CORP.
  • Correspondent: ROBERT B. LECLERC, AT&T CORP., P.O. BOX 411, MABELTON, GA 30126. This correspondent is AT&T's in-house counsel.
  • Context: Initial assignment of patent rights from the inventors to their employer, AT&T Corp., prior to the patent's grant.

No other assignment records for US7577099 were found in the USPTO Patent Assignment Search database.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7577099
    2006 : Patent application filed
    2009 : Inventors assigned to AT&T
    2009 : Patent issued to AT&T Corp
    2021 : Patent expired due to non-payment

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The only recorded transfer is from the individual inventors to AT&T Corp., a large operating company.
2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. AT&T Corp. is a telecommunications operating company, not a known patent asserter (NPE).
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Not applicable. There is only one recorded assignment in the chain. The correspondent, Robert B. Leclerc, is AT&T's in-house counsel, typical for an operating company.
4. Cascading transfers — Not present. There is only one recorded assignment.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No litigation involving this patent has been identified, and the only assignment is the initial transfer from inventors to the original assignee.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. AT&T Corp. (or its successor entities within AT&T Inc.) has not undergone bankruptcy proceedings resulting in a patent sale.
7. Privateering — Not present. There is no evidence of AT&T transferring this patent to an NPE for assertion on its behalf.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The patent was held by AT&T Corp. and later expired, not transferred to a defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Insufficient data for NPE classification. The patent was initially assigned from the inventors to AT&T Corp. (Reel 022953/0463), a major operating telecommunications company. No subsequent assignments have been recorded, indicating that the patent remained within the AT&T corporate family until its expiration due to non-payment of maintenance fees in 2021. There are no signals suggesting involvement of any NPE.

USPTO Patent Assignment Search: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/