Patent 8114697

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.

Active provider: Google · gemini-2.5-flash

Ownership chain (1)

Asserters network →

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

  1. 2008-07-21 · recorded 2008-08-26 · reel 021443/0598 · Assignment of Assignors Interest

    Hye Jin Kim, Sung Q Lee, Sang Kyun Lee, Jae Woo Lee, Kang Ho Park, Jong Dae KimELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE

    Correspondent: · Kim & Cho

    initial assignment from inventors to the corporate entity

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.

✓ Generated

Inventors

The named inventors are Hye Jin Kim, Sung Q Lee, Sang Kyun Lee, Jae Woo Lee, Kang Ho Park, and Jong Dae Kim. All six inventors assigned their interest to Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) shortly after the application was filed (executed July 21-22, 2008, recorded August 26, 2008). This indicates they were likely employees or affiliated with ETRI at the time of filing.

Original assignee

The original assignee named on the issued patent is Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI). ETRI is a South Korean government-funded research institute that specializes in information and communications technology. It is primarily a research and development organization rather than a product-shipping entity, though its technologies are licensed to industry. ETRI is currently operating.

Assignment timeline

I searched the USPTO Assignment Center for US patent 8114697 on 2026-05-31 at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/.

  • 2008-07-21 to 2008-07-22 (executed) / recorded 2008-08-26 — Reel 021443/0598
    • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
    • Assignor: Hye Jin Kim, Sung Q Lee, Sang Kyun Lee, Jae Woo Lee, Kang Ho Park, Jong Dae Kim (all inventors)
    • Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
    • Correspondent: Kim & Cho, 1605, Sungji Heights 3-cha Bldg., 642-6, Yeoksam-Dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 135-717, KR. This firm also handled the original application prosecution as per the Google Patents record.
    • Context: Initial assignment from inventors to the corporate entity.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8114697
    2008 : Filed by ETRI
         : Inventors assigned to ETRI
    2012 : Issued to ETRI
    2026 : Currently owned by ETRI

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The patent was assigned by the inventors to the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), a government-funded research organization. There is no subsequent transfer to an entity with a name suggesting a shell company.
  2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. ETRI is a research institution and not listed as a known NPE/asserter.
  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Not present. There is only one recorded assignment from the inventors to ETRI. The correspondent, Kim & Cho, handled this initial assignment and also appears as the correspondent on the original application, which is typical for initial prosecution. No subsequent assignments mean no recurrence of a correspondent in further transfers.
  4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Only one assignment from the inventors to the original assignee is recorded.
  5. Pre-litigation transfer — Unclear. While Google Patents indicates litigation in the California Northern District Court (case 4:26-cv-03260) and Texas Eastern District Court (case 2:22-cv-00434), the USPTO Assignment Center shows no assignments beyond the initial inventor-to-assignee transfer. Without a recorded transfer, it's impossible to determine if any assignment was timed to precede litigation. It is possible that the litigation is directly by ETRI, or the patent was licensed without a recorded assignment.
  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. There is no indication that ETRI has filed for bankruptcy, and no assignments resembling a bankruptcy sale are recorded.
  7. Privateering — Unclear. Without further assignment records or public company SEC filings (ETRI is a government-funded institute, not a public company), it's not possible to determine if privateering is occurring.
  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The patent is still held by ETRI, not a defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Insufficient data. The USPTO Assignment Center only records the initial assignment from the inventors to the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI). There are no subsequent assignments that would indicate a transfer to a shell entity, a known asserter, or other patterns associated with NPE activity. While Google Patents indicates litigation, the current assignment records do not provide information to link it to NPE behavior via ownership changes.

Verification: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

Generated 5/31/2026, 12:48:50 PM