Patent 7594168

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.

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Inventors

  • Steven H. Rempell (Employer at time of filing: Akira Tech Inc.)

Original assignee

Akira Tech Inc. was the original assignee named on the issued patent. Information regarding whether Akira Tech Inc. shipped a product embodying the claims, its primary line of business, and its current status (operating, acquired, dissolved, in bankruptcy) is not readily available within the provided patent text or standard public patent databases without further extensive corporate research.

Assignment timeline

  • 2012-02-28 (executed) / recorded 2012-03-05 — Reel 028169/0355
    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: REMPELL, STEVEN
    • Assignee: EXPRESS MOBILE, INC.
    • Correspondent: MICHAEL J. FEGIN, LAW OFFICE OF MICHAEL J. FEGIN, 114 WEST 26TH STREET, SUITE 800, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10001. This correspondent recurs in this chain.
    • Context: Transfer-to-asserter (from inventor to an entity that later became Express Mobile, Inc., which has a history of patent assertion)

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7594168
    2003 : Filed by Akira Tech Inc
    2009 : Issued to Akira Tech Inc
    2012 : Assigned to Express Mobile, Inc.

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — unclear. While the assignment from inventor Steven Rempell directly to EXPRESS MOBILE, INC. doesn't explicitly show a transfer from an operating assignee to a shell, EXPRESS MOBILE, INC. has been identified in litigation as a plaintiff asserting this patent, suggesting a possible licensing-focused business model. However, without further information on Akira Tech Inc.'s product activities, a definitive shell transfer from an operating entity cannot be established from the provided records.

  2. Known asserter in the chain — present. EXPRESS MOBILE, INC. is listed as the assignee in Reel 028169/0355. Unified Patents has identified Express Mobile, Inc. as a high-frequency plaintiff and NPE in connection with this patent family.

  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — present. MICHAEL J. FEGIN of LAW OFFICE OF MICHAEL J. FEGIN (114 WEST 26TH STREET, SUITE 800, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10001) is listed as the correspondent on the assignment to EXPRESS MOBILE, INC. (Reel 028169/0355). This is the only recorded assignment in the chain, so recurrence within the chain itself is limited to this single entry, but the prompt asks to flag if the correspondent recurs "elsewhere on this site's tracked patents," which requires external knowledge. For the purposes of this analysis, the single appearance is noted, but the "repeat" aspect would depend on broader data not explicitly provided for this specific patent.

  4. Cascading transfers — not present. Only one assignment is recorded in the provided information.

  5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear. The patent issued in 2009-09-22, and was assigned to Express Mobile, Inc. on 2012-03-05. The Google Patents litigation data indicates the earliest related litigation activity for this family was in 2016. There is a gap of several years between the assignment and the first listed litigation activity. Therefore, a pre-litigation transfer within 6 months is not definitively indicated by the provided data.

  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No indication of bankruptcy proceedings for Akira Tech Inc. or Steven Rempell is present in the provided patent text.

  7. Privateering — unclear. While Express Mobile, Inc. has asserted this patent, there is no explicit information within the provided text to suggest that Akira Tech Inc. (the original assignee) transferred it to Express Mobile, Inc. to assert on its behalf against competitors.

  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain ends with EXPRESS MOBILE, INC., which is an asserter, not a defensive aggregator.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence

This verdict is based on the presence of Express Mobile, Inc. in the assignment chain (Reel 028169/0355), which is a known high-frequency plaintiff and NPE. The patent has also been involved in extensive litigation, as evidenced by the numerous district court and PTAB cases listed in the Google Patents legal events section.

USPTO Assignment Center search for US7594168: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/#!/patent/7594168

Generated 5/29/2026, 8:48:10 PM