Patent 8959146

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 (1)

Asserters network →

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

  1. 2014-03-07 · reel 031940/0177 · ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST

    SHKEDI, ROY, MR.ALMONDNET, INC.

    Correspondent: G. E. BETHEL

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

  • Roy Shkedi (Almondnet Inc)

Original assignee

Almondnet Inc. The patent describes a "Media properties selection method and system based on expected profit from profile-based ad delivery," which aligns with Almondnet's business as a behavioral targeting company. Almondnet Inc. appears to be an operating company, specializing in ad targeting based on user behavior. Its current status is active.

Assignment timeline

  • 2014-03-07 (executed) / recorded 2014-03-07 — Reel 031940/0177
    • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
    • Assignor: SHKEDI, ROY, MR.
    • Assignee: ALMONDNET, INC.
    • Correspondent: G. E. BETHEL, 2390 E. CAMELBACK ROAD, SUITE 300, PHOENIX, ARIZONA, 85016.
    • Context: Inventor assigned patent rights to Almondnet Inc.

There are no subsequent assignment records for US8959146B2 in the USPTO Assignment Center.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8959146
    2014 : Assigned to Almondnet Inc
    2015 : Issued

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The sole recorded assignment is from the inventor to Almondnet Inc., which appears to be an operating company.
  2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Almondnet Inc. is not identified as a known asserter on public NPE lists, nor do the provided search results indicate this.
  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. There is only one recorded assignment, handled by G. E. Bethel.
  4. Cascading transfers — not present. Only one assignment is recorded.
  5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear. While the patent has been involved in litigation, there is no assignment recorded within six months prior to any of the listed litigation events. The earliest priority date is 2006-06-16, and the filing date is 2014-03-07. The earliest listed litigation appears to be 2016 (e.g., US case filed in New York Eastern District Court, 1:16-cv-01557), which is well after the 2014 assignment.
  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No indication of bankruptcy for Almondnet Inc.
  7. Privateering — unclear. There is no publicly available information in the provided context to suggest privateering.
  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not end at any known defensive aggregators.

Verdict

Insufficient data. Only a single assignment from the inventor to the original assignee, Almondnet Inc., is recorded. This assignment is a typical step in the patenting process and does not exhibit any strong NPE patterns. While the patent has been involved in litigation, the assignment record itself does not provide evidence of shell entities, known asserters, or other common NPE signals.

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

Generated 5/18/2026, 12:47:18 AM