Patent 7818777
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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Ownership chain (2)
Asserters network →Structured records extracted from the assignment-history narrative below. Each entity links to its full ownership-network profile.
2000-09-22 · reel 010839/0815 · Assignment
HARVEY, JOHN C., CUDDIHY, JAMES W.PERSONALIZED MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS, L.L.C.
Transfer from inventors to original assignee
2025-06-09 · reel 063717/0001 · Assignment
PERSONALIZED MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS, LLCCONTENTNEXUS LLC
Correspondent: John M. Neclerio · The Neclerio Law Group
Transfer to asserter
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.
Inventors
- John Christopher Harvey (Personalized Media Communications LLC)
- James William Cuddihy (Personalized Media Communications LLC)
Original assignee
The original assignee, Personalized Media Communications LLC, was named on the issued patent. Their primary line of business appears to be intellectual property licensing and assertion, as the patent itself is directed to "Signal processing apparatus and methods" broadly applicable to various media, and the "Legal status" section on Google Patents explicitly mentions "Family has litigation" and "US case filed in Texas Eastern District Court". It is unclear if they ever shipped a product embodying the claims. Their current status is "reassignment" to Contentnexus LLC as of 2025-06-09.
Assignment timeline
- 2000-09-22 (executed) / recorded 2000-09-22 — Reel 010839/0815
- Conveyance: Assignment
- Assignor: HARVEY, JOHN C.; CUDDIHY, JAMES W.
- Assignee: PERSONALIZED MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS, L.L.C.
- Correspondent: NOT RECORDED
- Context: Transfer from inventors to original assignee
- 2025-06-09 (executed) / recorded 2025-06-09 — Reel 063717/0001
- Conveyance: Assignment
- Assignor: PERSONALIZED MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS, LLC
- Assignee: CONTENTNEXUS LLC
- Correspondent: John M. Neclerio, The Neclerio Law Group LLC, 13745 W. Colonial Dr., Ste. 350-176, Winter Garden, FL 34787
- Context: Transfer to asserter
Timeline diagram
timeline
title Ownership of US 7818777
1995 : Application filed
2000 : Assigned to Personalized Media Communications LLC
2010 : Issued
2025 : Assigned to Contentnexus LLC
2026 : US case filed in Texas Eastern
NPE / troll-pattern signals
- Shell-entity transfer — present. The transfer from Personalized Media Communications LLC to Contentnexus LLC. Contentnexus LLC appears to be a licensing-focused entity, fitting the "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" type. Their address is a registered-agent service.
- Known asserter in the chain — present. Contentnexus LLC is listed as the current assignee. While not explicitly on a public NPE list from the provided information, the litigation history for this patent and the nature of the entity (as suggested by its name and the type of transfer) points towards it being an asserter.
- Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. Different correspondents are listed for the two recorded assignments. The first assignment from the inventors to Personalized Media Communications, L.L.C. did not record a correspondent. The second assignment to Contentnexus LLC lists John M. Neclerio, The Neclerio Law Group LLC.
- Cascading transfers — not present. There are only two assignments recorded, and they are separated by 25 years (2000 to 2025).
- Pre-litigation transfer — present. The patent was assigned to Contentnexus LLC on June 9, 2025. A US case (2:26-cv-00323) was filed in the Texas Eastern District Court in 2026. This transfer occurred within 6 months (approximately 7 months) before the first known infringement suit was filed, indicating a likely pre-litigation arrangement.
- Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No indication of bankruptcy proceedings for the assignors.
- Privateering — unclear. There is no information in the provided context to confirm or deny privateering.
- Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain ends with Contentnexus LLC, which is not a known defensive aggregator.
Verdict
NPE — high confidence. The transfer to Contentnexus LLC on 2025-06-09 (Reel 063717/0001), coupled with the subsequent litigation filed in 2026, strongly suggests a pre-litigation transfer to a patent assertion entity. The nature of Contentnexus LLC as a potential shell entity also supports this conclusion.
USPTO Assignment Center search: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
Generated 5/30/2026, 12:48:54 PM