Patent 9078488

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. 2015-01-23 · reel 035222/0839 · ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST

    PODHAJNY, DANIEL A., MEIR, ADRIANNIKE, INC.

    Correspondent: · NIKE, 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

  • Adrian Meir (Employer: Nike Inc)
  • Daniel A. Podhajny (Employer: Nike Inc)

There are no unusual patterns observed; the inventors formally assigned their rights to the original assignee, Nike Inc, prior to the patent's issuance.

Original assignee

The original assignee named on the issued patent is Nike Inc.
Nike Inc is a global operating company that designs, develops, manufactures, and markets athletic footwear, apparel, equipment, accessories, and services. They actively ship products, such as "Flyknit" footwear, that embody the claims of US9078488.
Nike Inc is currently operating.

Assignment timeline

  • 2015-01-23 (executed) / recorded 2015-01-23 — Reel 035222/0839
    • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
    • Assignor: PODHAJNY, DANIEL A., MEIR, ADRIAN
    • Assignee: NIKE, INC.
    • Correspondent: NIKE, INC. ONE BOWERMAN DRIVE, BEAVERTON, OREGON 97005
    • Context: Formal assignment of invention rights from individual inventors to the corporate assignee.

The USPTO Patent Assignment Search shows no other recorded assignments for US9078488.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9078488
    2014 : Application filed by Nike Inc
    2015 : Inventors assigned to Nike Inc
         : Patent issued to Nike Inc
    2018 : First infringement suit filed
    2019 : PTAB case filed against patent

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The patent is owned by Nike Inc, a well-known operating company that produces goods embodying the patent claims.
  2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Nike Inc is not listed as a known patent asserter (NPE).
  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. There is only one assignment record, and the correspondent is Nike, Inc. itself.
  4. Cascading transfers — not present. Only one assignment from the inventors to Nike Inc is recorded.
  5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The assignment to Nike Inc was executed and recorded on 2015-01-23 (Reel 035222/0839). The earliest recorded litigation involving this patent was filed in 2018 (US case 1:18-cv-10876), which is well outside the 6-month window prior to litigation.
  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. There is no indication that Nike Inc has filed for bankruptcy.
  7. Privateering — not present. There is no evidence of Nike Inc transferring the patent to an NPE for assertion.
  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. While Unified Patents filed a PTAB case (IPR2019-01060) against this patent, this indicates defensive action against the patent, not that the patent was transferred to a defensive aggregator. Nike Inc remains the owner.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion
Nike Inc, a global operating company, has continuously owned US9078488 since the formal assignment from its inventors (Reel 035222/0839, executed and recorded 2015-01-23). There are no recorded transfers to any shell entities or known NPEs, and Nike manufactures products (athletic footwear with knitted uppers) that embody the claims of the patent.

Verification: USPTO Patent Assignment Search for US9078488

Generated 6/16/2026, 6:46:13 PM