Patent 9928044

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. 2017-09-18 · reel 042564/0704 · Assignment

    BROWN, KEN; CHROBAK, DAVID; REMPELL, STEVENEXPRESS MOBILE, INC.

    Correspondent: RYAN S. KNUDSEN

    Original assignment from inventors to company

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

  • Steven H. Rempell (EXPRESS MOBILE Inc)
  • David Chrobak (EXPRESS MOBILE Inc)
  • Ken Brown (EXPRESS MOBILE Inc)

No unusual patterns observed regarding inventor departures.

Original assignee

EXPRESS MOBILE Inc.
Based on the patent description, EXPRESS MOBILE Inc. developed a "full-featured WYSIWYG authoring environment" for programming mobile devices, which suggests they shipped a product embodying the claims (the authoring platform and associated mobile application technology). Their primary line of business appears to be mobile application development platforms.
Current status: Unclear from the provided patent text and Google Patents information. The "Legal status" section on Google Patents indicates "Active" and "Family has litigation," but does not explicitly state the operating status of EXPRESS MOBILE Inc.

Assignment timeline

  • 2017-09-18 (executed) / recorded 2017-09-18 — Reel 042564/0704
    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: BROWN, KEN; CHROBAK, DAVID; REMPELL, STEVEN
    • Assignee: EXPRESS MOBILE, INC.
    • Correspondent: RYAN S. KNUDSEN, 12900 ALDERWOODS DRIVE, POWAY, CA 92064. This correspondent does not recur in this chain.
    • Context: Original assignment from inventors to company

The USPTO Assignment Center search (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/patent/[9928044](/patent/9928044)) only shows one assignment record for US9928044, which is the initial assignment from the inventors to EXPRESS MOBILE, INC. recorded on 2017-09-18. Therefore, EXPRESS MOBILE, INC. is the current recorded owner of record.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9928044
    2008 : Priority date
    2017 : Application filed
    2017 : Assigned to EXPRESS MOBILE
    2018 : Issued

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The only recorded assignment is from the inventors to EXPRESS MOBILE, INC., which appears to be an operating company based on the patent description of developing a "full-featured WYSIWYG authoring environment". [cite: 042564/0704]
  2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. EXPRESS MOBILE, INC. does not appear on public NPE lists.
  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. There is only one assignment record, thus no recurrence. [cite: 042564/0704]
  4. Cascading transfers — not present. Only one assignment is recorded. [cite: 042564/0704]
  5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear. While the Google Patents page mentions litigation, the timing of the initial assignment (2017-09-18) relative to any specific litigation events is not detailed enough to make a definitive judgment without further research into the litigation filing dates. The patent was granted on 2018-03-27.
  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No indication of bankruptcy proceedings for the assignor.
  7. Privateering — unclear. There is no publicly available information in the provided sources 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
There is only one recorded assignment for US9928044, which is the initial assignment from the inventors to EXPRESS MOBILE, INC. [cite: 042564/0704]. While the Google Patents page mentions litigation, the ownership chain does not show any transfers that would indicate an NPE pattern. Further investigation into the nature of the litigation and the current operational status of EXPRESS MOBILE, INC. would be required to make a more definitive assessment.

USPTO Assignment Center search: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/patent/9928044

Generated 6/26/2026, 12:48:43 AM