Assignment history

Inventors

• Marvin Weinberger: Employer not determinable from patent filing.
• Tucker J. Marion: Employer not determinable from patent filing.
• Evan Gurgui: Employer not determinable from patent filing.

Note: There is no unusual pattern of inventors departing the original assignee within 12 months of filing based on the available information.

Original assignee

The entity named on the issued patent is MIW Associates LLC. Based on the patent's focus on a "Scraper assembly" and the nature of the litigation (suing companies like Williams-Sonoma and Crate & Barrel, which sell household goods), it is highly probable that MIW Associates LLC's primary line of business involves developing and/or commercializing consumer products, likely in the kitchenware or cleaning tool sector. However, whether they directly shipped a product embodying the claims cannot be definitively determined from the patent text alone. The current status of MIW Associates LLC (operating, acquired, dissolved, in bankruptcy) is not readily available through the patent record.

Assignment timeline

The USPTO Patent Assignment Search was consulted for US Patent 8,870,630.

• 2011-11-09 (executed) / recorded 2011-11-09 — Reel 028343/0074
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest
  • Assignor: GURGUI, EVAN; WEINBERGER, MARVIN; MARION, TUCKER J. (all inventors)
  • Assignee: MIW ASSOCIATES, LLC
  • Correspondent: Matthew F. Barfuss, Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Boston, MA. This correspondent is new in this analysis.
  • Context: Transfer of ownership from inventors to the original assignee, MIW Associates LLC, after the patent application filing.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8870630
    2011 : Filed by MIW Associates LLC
         : Assigned inventors to MIW Associates LLC
    2014 : Issued to MIW Associates LLC

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — unclear. The original assignee is MIW Associates LLC. While the name could suggest a shell entity, there is no direct evidence from the assignment record (e.g., a transfer to an entity with "IP" or "Patents" in its name, or a registered-agent address) to confirm this. Information found indicates MIW Associates LLC is a privately-held company in the specialty finance industry, with headquarters in Lakewood, New Jersey. This does not definitively point to a shell entity for patent assertion.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. The sole assignee in the recorded chain is MIW Associates LLC. This entity does not appear on public NPE lists from sources like RPX or Unified Patents, nor does it match the names of other well-known high-frequency plaintiffs.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. Matthew F. Barfuss of Greenberg Traurig, LLP is listed as the correspondent for the single recorded assignment. There is no recurrence of this correspondent within the chain for this patent, nor is there information within this analysis about them appearing on an NPE assertion list.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Only one assignment is recorded for this patent.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The single recorded assignment occurred on November 9, 2011, well before the earliest identified litigation filing date of July 11, 2017.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. There is no indication of bankruptcy proceedings for the assignor or assignee in the patent record.

7. Privateering — unclear. There is no information in the public patent record to suggest that MIW Associates LLC is asserting patents on behalf of another operating company.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at any known defensive aggregators.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence. While there is only one recorded assignment, the litigation history for this patent, where MIW Associates, LLC sued multiple retailers (The Grommet, Williams-Sonoma, Crate & Barrel, BBQ Guys) in the same timeframe (July 2017) and subsequently reached settlements, strongly suggests a pattern of licensing-driven enforcement. Although the assignment record itself does not show typical "shell-entity" naming conventions or cascading transfers, the nature of the lawsuits points toward a non-practicing entity business model. The USPTO Assignment Center record for this patent can be found by searching for patent number 8870630 at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/.