Assignment history

Inventors

• Miska Hannuksela (Nokia Inc.)
• Ye-Kui Wang (Nokia Inc.)

It is common practice for employee inventors to assign their inventions to their employer as a condition of employment. The inventors in this case were employees of Nokia Inc. at the time of filing. There is no information to suggest they departed the original assignee within 12 months of filing.

Original assignee

The original assignee named on the issued patent is Nokia Inc. At the time of the patent's filing in 2003, Nokia Inc. was a significant player in the mobile phone industry, manufacturing a wide range of mobile devices. Its primary line of business included telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics.

Nokia Inc. (which was part of Nokia Corporation) sold its mobile and devices division to Microsoft in 2013. The Nokia Corporation pivoted its focus to telecommunications equipment and network infrastructure.

Currently, Nokia Technologies Oy (a subsidiary of Nokia Corporation) is the assignee of record for this patent. Nokia Corporation is an operating company and a global leader in connectivity for the AI era, with expertise across fixed, mobile, and transport networks, and a significant patent licensing business.

Assignment timeline

• 2003-08-06 (executed) / recorded 2003-08-27 — Reel 014445/0169
  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
  • Assignor: HANNUKSELA, MISKA; WANG, YE-KUI
  • Assignee: NOKIA CORPORATION
  • Correspondent: Not listed on recorded document.
  • Context: Internal transfer of patent rights from individual inventors to the corporate entity.
• 2015-01-16 (executed) / recorded 2015-04-26 — Reel 035495/0939
  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
  • Assignor: NOKIA CORPORATION
  • Assignee: NOKIA TECHNOLOGIES OY
  • Correspondent: Not listed on recorded document.
  • Context: Internal corporate reorganization, transferring patent ownership to a specific intellectual property holding subsidiary.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7724818
    2003 : Assigned to Nokia Corporation
    2010 : Patent issued
    2015 : Assigned to Nokia Technologies Oy
    2023 : ITC suit filed by Nokia Tech

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The transfers are between Nokia Corporation and its subsidiary Nokia Technologies Oy. Both are operating entities with a clear business purpose.
2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Nokia Technologies Oy is not identified on public NPE lists such as RPX or Unified Patents. Nokia Technologies Oy actively develops and licenses technologies in various sectors, including mobile, consumer electronics, IoT, video services, and gaming.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear. The recorded assignment documents do not consistently list a correspondent, making it impossible to identify any recurring correspondent patterns.
4. Cascading transfers — Not present. There are only two assignments recorded, with a 12-year gap between them.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. The last assignment to Nokia Technologies Oy was recorded in 2015. The first litigation identified for this patent (ITC Investigation 337-TA-1380) was filed on October 31, 2023. This gap of over eight years does not indicate a pre-litigation transfer.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. Nokia Corporation sold its mobile division to Microsoft in 2013 to avoid negative financial figures, but the company itself did not file for bankruptcy.
7. Privateering — Not present. There is no evidence from SEC filings or other public sources to suggest that Nokia Technologies Oy is acting on behalf of another operating company for assertion purposes.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The patent remains with Nokia Technologies Oy, an entity that engages in patent licensing and assertion, rather than a defensive aggregator like RPX or Allied Security Trust.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion

This verdict is based on the patent's ownership chain remaining within the Nokia corporate structure. The original assignee, Nokia Inc. (part of Nokia Corporation), was a product-shipping company. The current assignee, Nokia Technologies Oy, is an active subsidiary of Nokia Corporation, involved in research, development, and patent licensing across various technology sectors. Furthermore, Nokia Technologies Oy has initiated infringement litigation involving this patent (e.g., ITC Investigation 337-TA-1380 filed on October 31, 2023), indicating an assertion strategy by an operating company against perceived infringers who are actual competitors in the market for video-capable electronic devices.

For verification, you can search the USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/