Patent 9198261

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.

  1. 2013-04-16 · reel 030228/0281 · Assignment

    Wetzel, Bastian; Schech, ChristianSchrims GmbH

    Correspondent: Thomas F. Lebens · FINNEGAN, HENDERSON, FARABOW, GARRETT & DUNNER

    internal reorg

  2. 2015-10-23 · recorded 2024-02-22 · reel 066661/0001 · Assignment

    Schrims GmbHBrainstream GmbH

    acquisition

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

  • Christian Schech (Schrims GmbH at the time of filing)
  • Bastian Wetzel (Schrims GmbH at the time of filing)

Original assignee

The original assignee was Schrims GmbH. Information regarding whether Schrims GmbH shipped a product embodying the claims, their primary line of business, or their current operational status (operating, acquired, dissolved, in bankruptcy) is not readily available from the provided patent text or the available search results.

Assignment timeline

  • 2013-04-16 (executed) / recorded 2013-04-16 — Reel 030228/0281
    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: Wetzel, Bastian; Schech, Christian
    • Assignee: Schrims GmbH
    • Correspondent: Thomas F. Lebens, FINNEGAN, HENDERSON, FARABOW, GARRETT & DUNNER, LLP, 901 NEW YORK AVENUE, NW, WASHINGTON, DC 20001
    • Context: Internal reorg (transfer from inventors to original assignee)
  • 2015-10-23 (executed) / recorded 2024-02-22 — Reel 066661/0001
    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: Schrims GmbH
    • Assignee: Brainstream GmbH
    • Correspondent: No correspondent listed on Google Patents for this entry; USPTO Assignment Center would be needed for this detail. This correspondent has not appeared elsewhere in this chain so far.
    • Context: Acquisition

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9198261
    2011 : Filed by Schrims GmbH
    2013 : Assigned to Schrims GmbH from inventors
    2015 : Issued
    2024 : Assigned to Brainstream GmbH

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — unclear. The current assignee, Brainstream GmbH, is described in Google Patents as the "Current Assignee" and no further information is provided to suggest it is a shell entity.
  2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Neither Schrims GmbH nor Brainstream GmbH appear on commonly available public NPE lists from RPX or Unified Patents.
  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. The correspondent listed for the 2013 assignment (Thomas F. Lebens, FINNEGAN, HENDERSON, FARABOW, GARRETT & DUNNER, LLP) only appears once in the provided assignment records.
  4. Cascading transfers — not present. There are only two assignment records, spaced several years apart.
  5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The latest assignment to Brainstream GmbH was executed on 2015-10-23 and recorded on 2024-02-22, while the earliest known litigation case was filed in Illinois Northern District Court on 2024-02-22 and Texas Western District Court case 6:25-cv-00494 was also filed later. The provided information only states the assignment was recorded in 2024, not necessarily implying a close temporal proximity to the initial filing of the first lawsuit if it predates the recording. The provided Google Patents data indicates the assignment was effective 2015-10-23 and recorded 2024-02-22. The earliest litigation case number 1:24-cv-12029 was filed in the Illinois Northern District Court on Feb 22, 2024, which aligns with the recording date.
  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. There is no indication of bankruptcy for either Schrims GmbH or Brainstream GmbH.
  7. Privateering — unclear. There is no information provided to suggest a privateering arrangement.
  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at a known defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Insufficient data. While the recording date of the assignment to Brainstream GmbH coincides with the filing of the first reported lawsuit, the effective date of the assignment is significantly earlier (2015-10-23). Without further details on Brainstream GmbH's business activities, product shipments, or litigation history, it is not possible to confidently classify this as an NPE or operating-company assertion.

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

Generated 5/30/2026, 8:47:19 AM