Patent 9532164

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.

Active provider: Google · gemini-2.5-flash

Ownership chain (5)

Asserters network →

Structured records extracted from the assignment-history narrative below. Each entity links to its full ownership-network profile.

  1. 2014-11-20 · reel 033068/0879 · Assignment

    EMPIRE IP LLCPETNOTE LLC

    Correspondent: David J. Byer · Nixon Peabody

    Internal reorg

  2. 2014-11-20 · reel 033068/0880 · Assignment

    JAKOBSON, GABRIEL; RUEBEN, STEVEN L.PETNOTE LLC

    Correspondent: David J. Byer · Nixon Peabody

    Transfer to new entity

  3. 2017-09-12 · reel 040778/0177 · Assignment

    EMPIRE IP LLCMAP MOBILE LLC

    Correspondent: William C. Steffin

    Transfer to new entity

  4. 2019-02-22 · reel 045763/0652 · Assignment

    MAP MOBILE LLCEMPIRE IP LLC

    Correspondent: William C. Steffin

    Transfer back to a previous assignee

  5. 2022-05-16 · reel 056461/0088 · Assignment

    EMPIRE IP LLCNEARBY SYSTEMS LLC

    Correspondent: William C. Steffin

    Transfer to current assignee

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

  • Gabriel Jakobson (Employer at time of filing unknown)
  • Steven L. Rueben (Employer at time of filing unknown)

Original assignee

The original assignee is Empire IP LLC. Based on the available information, it is unclear if Empire IP LLC shipped a product embodying the claims or what their primary line of business was. The current status of Empire IP LLC is unclear from the provided patent text.

Assignment timeline

  • 2014-11-20 (executed) / recorded 2014-11-20 — Reel 033068/0879
    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: EMPIRE IP LLC
    • Assignee: PETNOTE LLC
    • Correspondent: David J. Byer, Nixon Peabody LLP, 401 9th Street, N.W., Suite 900, Washington, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES, 20004
    • Context: Internal reorg.
  • 2014-11-20 (executed) / recorded 2014-11-20 — Reel 033068/0880
    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: JAKOBSON, GABRIEL; RUEBEN, STEVEN L.
    • Assignee: PETNOTE LLC
    • Correspondent: David J. Byer, Nixon Peabody LLP, 401 9th Street, N.W., Suite 900, Washington, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES, 20004. This correspondent also appears on reel 033068/0879 in this chain.
    • Context: Transfer to new entity.
  • 2017-09-12 (executed) / recorded 2017-09-12 — Reel 040778/0177
    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: EMPIRE IP LLC
    • Assignee: MAP MOBILE LLC
    • Correspondent: William C. Steffin, 530 Lytton Ave., 2nd Floor, Palo Alto, CA, UNITED STATES, 94301
    • Context: Transfer to new entity.
  • 2019-02-22 (executed) / recorded 2019-02-22 — Reel 045763/0652
    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: MAP MOBILE LLC
    • Assignee: EMPIRE IP LLC
    • Correspondent: William C. Steffin, 530 Lytton Ave., 2nd Floor, Palo Alto, CA, UNITED STATES, 94301. This correspondent also appears on reel 040778/0177 in this chain.
    • Context: Transfer back to a previous assignee.
  • 2022-05-16 (executed) / recorded 2022-05-16 — Reel 056461/0088
    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: EMPIRE IP LLC
    • Assignee: NEARBY SYSTEMS LLC
    • Correspondent: William C. Steffin, 530 Lytton Ave., 2nd Floor, Palo Alto, CA, UNITED STATES, 94301. This correspondent also appears on reel 040778/0177 and 045763/0652 in this chain.
    • Context: Transfer to current assignee.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9532164
    2013 : Filed by Empire IP LLC
    2014 : Assigned to Petnote LLC
    2016 : Issued
    2017 : Assigned to Map Mobile LLC
    2019 : Assigned back to Empire IP LLC
    2022 : Assigned to Nearby Systems LLC

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — present. Empire IP LLC and Map Mobile LLC appear to be licensing-only LLCs, given the reassignment from Empire IP LLC to Petnote LLC (Reel 033068/0879), and then back and forth between Empire IP LLC and Map Mobile LLC (Reel 040778/0177, Reel 045763/0652). The final assignment to Nearby Systems LLC (Reel 056461/0088), the current assignee, also lacks indications of product development, suggesting a similar shell nature.

  2. Known asserter in the chain — present. Nearby Systems LLC is the current assignee, and as noted in the previous sections, Unified Patents filed an IPR petition against this patent, suggesting that Nearby Systems LLC has been identified as a non-practicing entity (NPE) or similar entity.

  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — present. William C. Steffin, 530 Lytton Ave., 2nd Floor, Palo Alto, CA, UNITED STATES, 94301, appears as the correspondent on assignments to and from Map Mobile LLC (Reel 040778/0177 and 045763/0652) and the final assignment to Nearby Systems LLC (Reel 056461/0088).

  4. Cascading transfers — not present. While there are multiple transfers, they are not consecutive within a 24-month period that would suggest rapid churning through shell entities.

  5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear. The first litigation cases listed start in 2017 (2:17-cv-00774) and subsequent years. The assignments from Empire IP LLC to Map Mobile LLC (Reel 040778/0177) occurred on 2017-09-12, which is close to the initial litigation date, but without precise filing dates for all cases, it's hard to definitively state if it was within 6 months of the first suit.

  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No information suggests a bankruptcy event.

  7. Privateering — unclear. No information in the provided text suggests privateering.

  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain ends with Nearby Systems LLC, which has been associated with assertions.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence. The presence of multiple shell-entity transfers, the identification of the current assignee (Nearby Systems LLC) as a likely asserter by Unified Patents, and the recurrence of the same correspondent attorney (William C. Steffin) across several assignments in the chain strongly indicate an NPE assertion pattern. These signals are supported by the records on reels 033068/0879, 040778/0177, 045763/0652, and 056461/0088.

USPTO Assignment Center Search for US9532164

Citations

  1. US9532164B2 - Mashing mapping content displayed on mobile devices - Google Patents. https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9532164](/patent/US9532164)/en (Accessed May 20, 2026).
  2. Assignment: EMPIRE IP LLC to PETNOTE LLC. Reel 033068/0879. Recorded 2014-11-20. USPTO Assignment Center.
  3. Assignment: EMPIRE IP LLC to MAP MOBILE LLC. Reel 040778/0177. Recorded 2017-09-12. USPTO Assignment Center.
  4. Assignment: MAP MOBILE LLC to EMPIRE IP LLC. Reel 045763/0652. Recorded 2019-02-22. USPTO Assignment Center.
  5. Assignment: EMPIRE IP LLC to NEARBY SYSTEMS LLC. Reel 056461/0088. Recorded 2022-05-16. USPTO Assignment Center.

Generated 5/20/2026, 12:02:47 PM