Patent 7840427

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 (1)

Asserters network →

Structured records extracted from the assignment-history narrative below. Each entity links to its full ownership-network profile.

  1. 2019-04-04 · Assignment

    Sean O'SullivanCarma Technology Ltd.

    commercialization

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

The sole named inventor is Sean O'Sullivan. The original assignee on record is "Individual," referring to Sean O'Sullivan, so no employer is listed at the time of filing. There is no information provided to suggest an unusual pattern of inventors departing the original assignee.

Original assignee

The patent was originally assigned to an "Individual" (Sean O'Sullivan). The first recorded assignee in the provided information is Carma Technology Ltd.

Carma Technology Ltd. was an operating company known for developing carpooling and ridesharing applications, specifically the Carma Carpooling app, which shipped products embodying the claims of the patent. Its primary line of business was shared transport and ridesharing technology. Carma Technology Ltd. was acquired by Ridecell in 2019, but Google Patents still lists Carma Technology Ltd. as the current assignee for US7840427, and the patent's legal status is active.

Assignment timeline

Based on the provided Google Patents information, there is one explicit assignment noted in the patent's legal event history. Without performing a live USPTO Assignment Center search, specific reel/frame numbers and correspondent details are not available from the provided text.

  • 2019-04-04 (executed) / recorded 2019-04-04 — Reel [not provided in source]
    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: Sean O'Sullivan
    • Assignee: Carma Technology Ltd.
    • Correspondent: [not provided in source].
    • Context: Transfer from the individual inventor to an operating company for commercialization.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7840427
    2008 : Filed by individual
    2010 : Patent issued
    2019 : Assigned to Carma Technology Ltd
    2025 : US litigation filed
    2026 : IPR filed by Unified Patents

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The assignment is from an individual inventor to Carma Technology Ltd., which was an operating company actively developing and commercializing ridesharing applications embodying the patent's claims.
  2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present as an assignee. The assignee, Carma Technology Ltd., is not on the list of known NPEs. However, Unified Patents, a known defensive aggregator (anti-NPE), has filed an Inter Partes Review (IPR) against this patent (IPR2026-00305), indicating a challenge to its assertion. [cite: "PTAB case IPR2026-00305 filed (Pending)"]
  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear. The correspondent information for the assignment is not provided in the source text.
  4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Only one assignment is explicitly listed in the provided information, from the individual inventor to Carma Technology Ltd.
  5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. The assignment to Carma Technology Ltd. occurred on 2019-04-04. The first US litigation case noted was filed in the Eastern District of Texas in 2025 (case 2:25-cv-00029). This gap of more than 6 months means the transfer does not meet the criteria for a pre-litigation transfer. [cite: "2019-04-04 Assigned to CARMA TECHNOLOGY LTD.", "US case filed in Texas Eastern District Court litigation https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/2%3A25-cv-00029"]
  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. There is no indication that the original inventor or Carma Technology Ltd. filed for bankruptcy resulting in the patent transfer. Carma Technology Ltd. was acquired by Ridecell.
  7. Privateering — Unclear. No information in the provided source suggests privateering activity.
  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Present. Unified Patents, an organization known for its defensive aggregation and efforts to deter NPE assertions, has filed an IPR (IPR2026-00305) against this patent. This indicates an action to challenge the patent's validity, typically in response to its assertion. [cite: "PTAB case IPR2026-00305 filed (Pending) https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2026-00305"]

Verdict

Operating-company assertion
The patent was assigned from the individual inventor to Carma Technology Ltd., an operating company that developed and commercialized products embodying the patent's claims. While the patent is currently involved in litigation, including a case in the Eastern District of Texas and an IPR filed by the defensive aggregator Unified Patents, the original transfer was to an operating entity. This suggests the patent is being asserted by an operating company (Carma, its successor, or licensee) rather than a pure shell entity.

For verification, refer to the USPTO Patent Assignment Search: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ and Google Patents for US7840427: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7840427/en

Generated 5/29/2026, 5:44:16 PM