Patent 7851394

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

The sole named inventor is Adam J. G. Ellison. At the time of filing (2006-06-28), he was employed by Corning Inc, as indicated by Corning Inc being the original assignee. No unusual patterns, such as all inventors departing the original assignee, are discernable from the provided information.

Original assignee

The original assignee named on the issued patent is Corning Inc. Corning Inc is a multinational technology company that specializes in specialty glass, ceramics, and related materials and technologies. They ship products embodying the claims, specifically boroalumino silicate glasses used as substrates in flat panel display devices. Corning Inc is currently an operating, publicly traded company.

Assignment timeline

No assignments for US patent 7851394 are recorded in the USPTO Assignment Center. This indicates that the patent likely remains under the ownership of the original assignee, Corning Inc.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7851394
    2006 : Application filed by Corning Inc
    2010 : Patent issued to Corning Inc

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No transfers to shell entities have been recorded.
  2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No known NPEs are identified in the ownership chain.
  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. No assignments are recorded, so no correspondent information is available to identify recurrence.
  4. Cascading transfers — not present. No assignments have been recorded.
  5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No assignments are recorded that would precede the known litigation events.
  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Corning Inc is an active, operating company, not in bankruptcy.
  7. Privateering — unclear. While Corning Inc is an operating company that is asserting the patent (as evidenced by International Trade Commission cases), there is no evidence of a transfer to an NPE for assertion on Corning's behalf, which would be typical for privateering.
  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The patent is held by Corning Inc, not a defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion. The patent US7851394 is currently owned by the original assignee, Corning Inc, which is an operating company. The presence of multiple US case filings in the International Trade Commission (337-TA-1433, 337-TA-3795, 337-TA-1441) and PTAB litigation (IPR2025-00439) confirms that Corning Inc is actively asserting this patent directly.
Verification: USPTO Assignment Center search for US7851394.

Generated 5/15/2026, 12:45:13 PM