Patent 9462440

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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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

  • Kumar K. Vishwanathan: Employer at the time of filing not determinable from the patent document.
  • Prakash R. Iyer: Employer at the time of filing not determinable from the patent document.
  • Rangamani Sundar: Employer at the time of filing not determinable from the patent document.
  • Kumar Raman: Employer at the time of filing not determinable from the patent document.
  • Girish Hariharasubramani: Employer at the time of filing not determinable from the patent document.

Original assignee

The original assignee named on the issued patent US9462440 is WECHAT INTERNATIONAL Pte Ltd. WeChat is a widely used multi-purpose messaging, social media, and mobile payment application developed by Tencent in China. Therefore, it is highly probable that WECHAT INTERNATIONAL Pte Ltd shipped a product embodying the claims, specifically the WeChat application itself, which facilitates community interaction using mobile communication devices. Their primary line of business is telecommunications, social networking, and mobile services. Based on publicly available information, WeChat International Pte Ltd is an operating subsidiary of Tencent and is currently operating.

Assignment timeline

No assignment records were found for US Patent 9462440 on the USPTO Patent Assignment Search database. This indicates that the patent likely remains assigned to the original assignee, WECHAT INTERNATIONAL Pte Ltd.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9462440
    2015 : Filed by WECHAT INTERNATIONAL Pte Ltd
    2016 : Issued to WECHAT INTERNATIONAL Pte Ltd

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The patent remains with the original operating company, WeChat International Pte Ltd.
  2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. The current assignee, WeChat International Pte Ltd, is not identified as a known NPE.
  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. No assignment chain exists to observe repeat correspondents.
  4. Cascading transfers — not present. No assignments are recorded.
  5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No assignments are recorded.
  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. There is no indication of the original assignee undergoing bankruptcy proceedings related to this patent.
  7. Privateering — not present. No evidence of privateering has been found.
  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The patent is not currently assigned to a defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Insufficient data (no records, or only the original assignment). The USPTO assignment records for US9462440 indicate no transfers beyond the original assignment to WECHAT INTERNATIONAL Pte Ltd. Therefore, there is no evidence to suggest NPE activity.

USPTO Assignment Center Search for US9462440

Generated 5/22/2026, 12:45:53 AM