Patent 9055254
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 (2)
Asserters network →Structured records extracted from the assignment-history narrative below. Each entity links to its full ownership-network profile.
2014-02-05 · reel 031940/0173 · ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
SELIM, MOHAMMEDFLEXTRONICS AP, LLC
Correspondent: · BLANK ROME
Initial assignment from inventor to the original assignee
2023-01-18 · reel 063630/0352 · ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
FLEXTRONICS AP, LLCMULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGIES PTE. LTD.
Correspondent: · BLANK ROME
transfer-to-asserter
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.
Inventors
- Mohammed Selim. His employer at the time of filing, Flextronics AP LLC, is the original assignee.
Original assignee
The original assignee named on the issued patent is Flextronics AP LLC. This entity appears to be a subsidiary of Flextronics International Ltd. (now Flex Ltd.), a large multinational manufacturing company that provides design, manufacturing, and supply chain services. Flex Ltd. manufactures a wide range of products for various industries, so it is highly likely that Flextronics AP LLC shipped products embodying the claims of the patent as part of Flex's broader operations. Flex Ltd. is an operating company and is currently active.
Assignment timeline
- 2014-02-05 (executed) / recorded 2014-02-05 — Reel 031940/0173
- Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
- Assignor: SELIM, MOHAMMED
- Assignee: FLEXTRONICS AP, LLC
- Correspondent: BLANK ROME LLP, P.O. Box 776, Washington, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 20044
- Context: Initial assignment from inventor to the original assignee.
- 2023-01-18 (executed) / recorded 2023-01-18 — Reel 063630/0352
- Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
- Assignor: FLEXTRONICS AP, LLC
- Assignee: MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGIES PTE. LTD.
- Correspondent: BLANK ROME LLP, 1825 EYE STREET NW, WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 20006
- Context: Transfer of patent ownership from the original operating company assignee to a new entity.
Timeline diagram
timeline
title Ownership of US 9055254
2013 : Filed by Flextronics AP LLC
2014 : Assigned from inventor to Flextronics AP LLC
2015 : Patent issued
2023 : Assigned to Multimedia Technologies Pte Ltd
NPE / troll-pattern signals
- Shell-entity transfer — present. The patent was transferred from Flextronics AP LLC (an operating company) to Multimedia Technologies Pte. Ltd. on 2023-01-18 (Reel 063630/0352). "Multimedia Technologies Pte. Ltd." is a generic name suggesting a potential licensing-only entity, and such entities often do not ship products. A web search for "Multimedia Technologies Pte Ltd products" does not readily yield information about specific products embodying television channel changing technology; instead, it largely points to patent litigation or holding companies.
- Known asserter in the chain — unclear. Multimedia Technologies Pte. Ltd. is not immediately recognizable as one of the explicitly named "known asserters" in the provided list. Further in-depth research would be required to definitively confirm if they are a known high-frequency plaintiff or part of a larger NPE network, which is beyond the scope of this analysis without explicit instructions for a deep dive into asserter directories.
- Repeat correspondent across the chain — present. BLANK ROME LLP appears as the correspondent for both recorded assignments (Reel 031940/0173 and Reel 063630/0352). The firm handled the initial inventor assignment and the subsequent transfer to Multimedia Technologies Pte. Ltd.
- Cascading transfers — not present. There are only two assignments recorded, and they are not consecutive through chained LLCs within a short period.
- Pre-litigation transfer — unclear. Google Patents shows multiple litigation cases related to this patent, with the earliest listed as "US case filed in Texas Eastern District Court". The link provided leads to unifiedpatents.com which shows a case 2:22-cv-00494 filed in 2022. The assignment to Multimedia Technologies Pte. Ltd. was recorded on 2023-01-18. If the litigation in Texas was filed in 2022, then the assignment in 2023 followed the initial litigation, rather than preceding it, making this signal "not present" for that specific transfer. However, the first worldwide litigation is listed as "First worldwide family litigation filed" by darts-ip, but no date is given, so it's unclear if the 2023 assignment was pre-litigation for other, later-filed cases, or was related to managing existing litigation. Given the 2022 Texas filing date, the 2023 assignment is not pre-litigation for the earliest recorded US suit.
- Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. There is no indication that Flextronics AP LLC (or Flex Ltd.) underwent bankruptcy proceedings that led to this patent transfer.
- Privateering — unclear. While the transfer is from an operating company to a potentially non-operating entity, there's no public information in the patent record or Google Patents legal events directly indicating that Multimedia Technologies Pte. Ltd. is asserting on behalf of Flex Ltd. against Flex's competitors.
- Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at a known defensive aggregator like RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or Open Invention Network.
Verdict
NPE — moderate confidence. The transfer from an operating company (Flextronics AP LLC) to a generic-sounding entity (Multimedia Technologies Pte. Ltd.) on 2023-01-18 (Reel 063630/0352), combined with the use of the same correspondent firm (BLANK ROME LLP) for both recorded assignments, suggests a possible shell-entity transfer arrangement to facilitate assertion. While the current assignee is not explicitly on the short list of "known asserters," the patterns align with typical NPE behavior.
For verification, see USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/patents/[9055254](/patent/9055254).
Generated 5/31/2026, 12:48:35 PM