Assignment history

Inventors

• Peter J. Lynch, III - Employer at time of filing not determinable.

It's not explicitly stated whether Peter J. Lynch, III was employed at a specific company at the time of filing. Patent ownership generally vests initially with the inventor unless there's an express contract assigning rights to an employer, or if the employee was hired specifically to invent.

Original assignee

The original assignee named on the issued patent is "Individual." This indicates the patent was initially assigned by the inventor(s) to themselves or an unspecified individual before any corporate assignment. The first corporate assignee listed in Google Patents is INGENUITY SALES & SERVICES, LLC, which occurred on the same day the application was filed and prioritized.

INGENUITY SALES & SERVICES, LLC does not appear to ship products embodying the claims of US8855723, which relate to temporal incoming communication notification management for smartphones. Publicly available information for entities named "Ingenuity Sales & Services, LLC" or similar names primarily points to:

• A brand specializing in baby bouncers, feeding, and bathing gear.
• A professional services company focused on business and technology consulting, software development, and IT optimization.
• A sales consulting firm.
• A private equity/venture capital advisory firm.
  None of these align with smartphone notification management.

The current status of INGENUITY SALES & SERVICES, LLC (the specific entity that was assigned the patent) is not definitively determinable from the provided information, as multiple entities use "Ingenuity" in their names.

Assignment timeline

• 2011-09-25 (executed) / recorded 2011-09-25 — Reel N/A

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Peter J. Lynch, III (Individual)
  • Assignee: INGENUITY SALES & SERVICES, LLC
  • Correspondent: N/A
  • Context: Original assignment from inventor to an LLC

• 2018-04-15 (executed) / recorded N/A — Reel N/A

  • Conveyance: Reassignment
  • Assignor: INGENUITY SALES AND SERVICES, LLC
  • Assignee: ASYLUM SYSTEMS, INC
  • Correspondent: N/A
  • Context: Transfer of interest

• 2023-02-16 (executed) / recorded N/A — Reel N/A

  • Conveyance: Reassignment
  • Assignor: ASYLUM SYSTEMS
  • Assignee: STASIT LLC
  • Correspondent: N/A
  • Context: Transfer of interest to current assignee

The USPTO Patent Assignment Search did not return specific reel/frame numbers or correspondent information for the listed assignments for US8855723. The information provided above for the assignment timeline is based on the Google Patents legal events section.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8855723
    2011 : Filed by Peter J Lynch III
         : Assigned to INGENUITY SALES & SERVICES LLC
    2014 : Issued
    2018 : Assigned to ASYLUM SYSTEMS INC
    2023 : Assigned to STASIT LLC
    2023 : Ex Parte Reexam Initiated by Unified Patents

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Present.

   • 2011-09-25 Assignment from Peter J. Lynch, III (Individual) to INGENUITY SALES & SERVICES, LLC. The assignee, INGENUITY SALES & SERVICES, LLC, does not appear to sell products related to the patent's claims (smartphone notification management), instead being associated with baby products, consulting, or sales.
   • 2023-02-16 Reassignment from ASYLUM SYSTEMS to STASIT LLC. STASIT LLC is explicitly identified as an NPE by Unified Patents and does not appear to have products related to the patent's claims. Stasit LLC appears to offer supplements for health and wellness or deals with "time travel engineering and artifact recovery" in other contexts, which is unrelated to smartphone notification management. The other "Asylum Systems" found primarily provide IT solutions for small to medium-sized businesses and homes.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Present.

   • STASIT LLC is the current assignee and is explicitly identified as a Non-Practicing Entity (NPE) by Unified Patents, which has challenged the patent in an ex parte reexamination. STASIT LLC has asserted this patent as the sole patent in district court litigations against major tech companies like Apple, Meta Platforms, Google, LG, Samsung, and HTC.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear.

   • The USPTO Assignment Search did not provide correspondent details (attorney name, firm, address) for the recorded assignments, so recurrence cannot be determined.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present.

   • There are only three assignments listed over a period of 12 years (2011, 2018, 2023), which does not indicate multiple consecutive assignments in a short timeframe.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Present.

   • The most recent assignment to STASIT LLC occurred on 2023-02-16. Unified Patents initiated an ex parte reexamination of the patent less than one month before December 1, 2023, and the patent has been asserted in district court litigations in the Western District of Texas against multiple companies. This timeframe (February 2023 assignment, late 2023 litigation) suggests the assignment to STASIT LLC was pre-litigation. The Western District of Texas is a known venue for patent litigation, particularly by NPEs.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present.

   • There is no information to suggest that any of the assignors or assignees in the chain underwent bankruptcy proceedings that resulted in the sale of this patent.

7. Privateering — Unclear.

   • There is no available information from SEC filings or other sources to suggest an operating company transferred the patent to an NPE to assert on its behalf against competitors.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present.

   • The chain ends with STASIT LLC, which is identified as an NPE. The patent has been challenged by Unified Patents, an anti-NPE organization, but the ownership does not terminate with them.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence
This verdict is based on several strong signals: the current assignee, STASIT LLC, is explicitly identified as an NPE by Unified Patents. The initial assignment was from an individual to an LLC (INGENUITY SALES & SERVICES, LLC) that does not appear to produce products embodying the claims. Furthermore, the assignment to STASIT LLC in February 2023 [cite: Original Patent] was followed shortly by multiple infringement suits in late 2023, indicating a pre-litigation transfer to enable assertion. The USPTO Assignment Center search for US8855723 can be verified at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number).