Assignment history

Inventors

The sole inventor is C. Earl Woolfork. The original assignee is ONE-E-WAY Inc, a company associated with the inventor. There are no unusual departure patterns as the inventor and assignee entity are directly linked.

Original assignee

ONE-E-WAY Inc. is named as the original assignee. The company appears to be the personal holding and assertion vehicle for the inventor, C. Earl Woolfork. There is no evidence that ONE-E-WAY Inc. has ever shipped a commercial product embodying the patent's claims. The company is currently active as a plaintiff in patent litigation.

Assignment timeline

A search of the USPTO Patent Assignment Center for US patent 9,107,000 surfaces two recorded transactions.

• 2008-10-22 (executed) / recorded 2019-08-27 — Reel 050187/0067

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: C. Earl Woolfork (Inventor)
  • Assignee: ONE-E-WAY, INC.
  • Correspondent: C. Earl Woolfork, 8885 Rio San Diego Dr., Ste. 237, San Diego, CA 92108
  • Context: A nunc pro tunc assignment formalizing the inventor's transfer to his own company, recorded nearly 11 years after execution to clean up the chain of title, likely in preparation for a licensing or assertion campaign.

• 2019-05-28 (executed) / recorded 2019-09-03 — Reel 050253/0119

  • Conveyance: License
  • Assignor: ONE-E-WAY, INC.
  • Assignee: PEAG, LLC D/B/A JLAB AUDIO
  • Correspondent: Donn K. Harms, American Patent & Trademark Law, 12702 Via Cortina Ste 100, Del Mar, CA 92014
  • Context: A license granted to a commercial manufacturer of audio products, recorded shortly after the original inventor assignment was finalized on the register.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9107000
    2001 : Priority date
    2008 : Inventor assigns patent to ONE-E-WAY Inc
    2015 : Patent issued
    2019 : Assignment from 2008 is recorded
         : License granted to JLab Audio
    2024 : Infringement suits filed by ONE-E-WAY

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — present. The patent was assigned from the inventor to ONE-E-WAY, INC. (Reel 050187/0067), an entity that does not appear to produce commercial products and is now asserting the patent in litigation, indicating it is a licensing-only vehicle.

2. Known asserter in the chain — present. The current assignee and plaintiff, ONE-E-WAY Inc., is documented by Unified Patents as an asserter of this patent family in multiple district court cases and a corresponding IPR proceeding (e.g., ONE-E-WAY, INC. v. Anker Innovations Limited, 1:24-cv-01558 W.D.Tex.; IPR2025-01541).

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. The two recorded transactions have different correspondents.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. The chain of title is direct from the inventor to a single assertion entity.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear. While the original assignment was executed in 2008, it was not recorded until August 2019 (Reel 050187/0067). This delayed recording served to perfect the chain of title years before the first lawsuits were filed in 2024, representing a long-term preparatory step for monetization rather than an immediate pre-suit transfer.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. There is no evidence of bankruptcy proceedings.

7. Privateering — not present. There is no evidence of an operating company transferring the patent to an NPE to assert on its behalf.

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

Verdict

NPE — high confidence

The verdict is supported by two strong signals. First, the patent is held by ONE-E-WAY, INC., an entity that appears to exist solely to hold and assert the inventor's patents without producing any commercial products (Reel 050187/0067). Second, ONE-E-WAY, INC. is a known patent asserter currently engaged in active litigation, as documented by industry trackers like Unified Patents. The nearly 11-year delay in recording the foundational inventor assignment is a classic tactic for preparing a dormant patent for an assertion campaign.

Verify records at: USPTO Patent Assignment Search (search for patent number 9107000).