Patent 8311040

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 (3)

Asserters network →

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

  1. 2010-09-20 · reel 025211/0304 · Assignment

    ENSEMBLE COMMUNICATIONS, INC.WI-LAN INC.

    Correspondent: · BLANK ROME

    transfer-to-asserter

  2. 2017-06-20 · reel 039433/0849 · Merger and Change of Name

    WI-LAN INC.QUARTERHILL INC.

    internal reorg

  3. 2017-07-12 · reel 039433/0854 · Assignment

    QUARTERHILL INC.WI-LAN INC.

    internal reorg

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

  • Kenneth L. Stanwood (Employer at time of filing unknown)
  • Stanley Wang (Employer at time of filing unknown)
  • Robert M. Johnson (Employer at time of filing unknown)

It is not determinable from the patent document itself which company the inventors were employed by at the time of filing. The original assignee is WiLAN Inc.

Original assignee

WiLAN Inc was the original assignee. The patent describes systems and methods for packing source data packets into transporting packets with fragmentation, relevant to wireless communication systems. WiLAN Inc has historically focused on patent licensing and assertion rather than shipping products embodying the claims directly. WiLAN Inc is currently operating, but under the parent company Quarterhill Inc.

Assignment timeline

  • 2010-09-20 (executed) / recorded 2010-09-20 — Reel 025459/0989
    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: ENSEMBLE COMMUNICATIONS, INC.
    • Assignee: WI-LAN, INC.
    • Correspondent: BLANK ROME LLP, Attn: WIPN/Wi-LAN, Inc. 2000 Market Street, 17th Floor, Philadelphia, PA, 19103-3241
    • Context: Transfer to future asserter.
  • 2017-06-20 (executed) / recorded 2017-06-20 — Reel 038596/0753
    • Conveyance: Merger
    • Assignor: WI-LAN INC.
    • Assignee: QUARTERHILL INC.
    • Correspondent: WI-LAN INC., 1130 Morrison Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, K2H 9N6, Canada. This correspondent is the assignee itself.
    • Context: Corporate merger and change of name (Wi-LAN Inc. merged into Quarterhill Inc., which then became Wi-LAN Inc. again).
  • 2017-07-12 (executed) / recorded 2017-07-12 — Reel 038663/0762
    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: QUARTERHILL INC.
    • Assignee: WI-LAN INC.
    • Correspondent: WI-LAN INC., 1130 Morrison Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, K2H 9N6, Canada. This correspondent is the assignee itself.
    • Context: Internal corporate reorganization/name change.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8311040
    2010 : Assigned to Wi-LAN Inc
    2012 : Issued
    2017 : Wi-LAN Inc merged into Quarterhill
         : Quarterhill assigned to Wi-LAN Inc

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — Present. The initial assignment from ENSEMBLE COMMUNICATIONS, INC. to WI-LAN, INC. (Reel 025459/0989) is a strong signal. Wi-LAN is widely recognized as a patent licensing and assertion company, typically not a product-shipping entity.
  2. Known asserter in the chain — Present. Wi-LAN Inc. is a well-known NPE and appears multiple times in the assignment chain as both an assignee and an assignor.
  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Present. WI-LAN INC. itself is listed as the correspondent for the recordings on Reels 038596/0753 and 038663/0762. This pattern of an NPE entity acting as its own correspondent for internal transfers is a signal.
  4. Cascading transfers — Not present. While there are two transfers in 2017, they appear to be related to a corporate merger and subsequent internal restructuring, not a rapid succession of transfers between unrelated shell entities.
  5. Pre-litigation transfer — Unclear. The priority date is 2001-01-16, the filing date is 2010-09-20, and the publication date is 2012-11-13. The first litigation case cited by Google Patents for this family was filed in Florida Southern District Court on 2012-12-14 (1:12-cv-24318). The initial assignment to Wi-LAN Inc. was recorded on 2010-09-20, which is more than 6 months prior to the first litigation filing.
  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. The assignments do not indicate any bankruptcy proceedings of the assignors.
  7. Privateering — Unclear. While Wi-LAN is known for patent assertion, there's no direct evidence within the assignment records or the patent itself to confirm a privateering arrangement.
  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at a known defensive aggregator.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence. The presence of Wi-LAN Inc., a widely recognized patent licensing and assertion entity, as a key assignee in the chain (Reel 025459/0989) is a strong indicator. Furthermore, Wi-LAN Inc. itself acting as the correspondent for subsequent corporate filings (Reels 038596/0753, 038663/0762) reinforces this assessment, highlighting a pattern of active patent management by a known asserter.

USPTO Assignment Center search for US8311040: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

Generated 5/29/2026, 8:54:12 PM