Patent US7430471

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.

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Inventors

Franklin C. Simon. The patent does not list an employer for the inventor at the time of filing.

Original assignee

The original assignee on the issued patent was Payment Protection Systems Inc. The patent abstract and description indicate their primary line of business was vehicle monitoring and security systems. Information on whether they shipped a product embodying the claims is not available in the provided patent text. According to the Google Patents legal events, Payment Protection Systems Inc. was involved in several reassignments of the patent, including being an assignor in 2007, 2013, and 2014, and an assignee in 2014, suggesting potential changes in its operating status or ownership.

Assignment timeline

  • 2006-01-12 (executed) / recorded 2006-02-08 — Reel 017246/0667

    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: Simon Franklin C.
    • Assignee: PAYMENT PROTECTION SYSTEMS, INC., CALIFORNIA
    • Correspondent: BROWNING BUSSE & EIPPER, P.C.
    • Context: Original assignment from inventor to operating company.

  • 2007-08-31 (executed) / recorded 2007-09-17 — Reel 019825/0854

    • Conveyance: Intellectual Property Security Agreement
    • Assignor: SEKURUS, INC.; PAYMENT PROTECTION SYSTEMS, INC.
    • Assignee: VALENS U.S. SPV I, LLC, NEW YORK
    • Correspondent: KIRKLAND & ELLIS LLP
    • Context: Securitization of intellectual property.

  • 2013-01-22 (executed) / recorded 2013-02-04 — Reel 029882/0454

    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: BARCLAY, CHRISTOPHER R., CHAPTER 7 TRUSTEE FOR THE BANKRUPTCY ESTATE OF SEKURUS, INC.; SEKURUS, INC.; PAYMENT PROTECTION SYSTEMS, INC.; AND OTHERS
    • Assignee: RFC CAPITAL HOLDINGS, INC., CALIFORNIA
    • Correspondent: HAHN AND MOORE
    • Context: Transfer out of bankruptcy estate.

  • 2012-08-21 (executed) / recorded 2014-07-23 — Reel 033372/0354

    • Conveyance: Merger
    • Assignor: PAYMENT PROTECTION SYSTEMS, INC., A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION
    • Assignee: PAYMENT PROTECTION SYSTEMS, INC., A NEVADA CORPORATION
    • Correspondent: KORY & WONG LLP
    • Context: Internal corporate reorganization/change of state of incorporation.

  • 2014-07-16 (executed) / recorded 2014-07-23 — Reel 033372/0494

    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: PAYMENT PROTECTION SYSTEMS, INC., A NEVADA CORPORATION
    • Assignee: RFC CAPITAL HOLDING, INC., CALIFORNIA
    • Correspondent: KORY & WONG LLP. This correspondent recurs in this chain.
    • Context: Transfer within corporate group.

  • 2012-12-11 (executed) / recorded 2014-07-23 — Reel 033372/0423

    • Conveyance: Court Order
    • Assignor: SEKURUS, INC.
    • Assignee: RFC CAPITAL HOLDING, INC., CALIFORNIA
    • Correspondent: KORY & WONG LLP. This correspondent recurs in this chain.
    • Context: Court-ordered transfer related to Sekurus, Inc.

  • 2012-12-11 (executed) / recorded 2014-07-23 — Reel 033388/0968

    • Conveyance: Release of Security Interest
    • Assignor: VALENS U.S. SPV I, LLC
    • Assignee: SEKURUS, INC., CALIFORNIA; PAYMENT PROTECTION SYSTEMS, INC., A NEVADA CORPORA
    • Correspondent: KORY & WONG LLP. This correspondent recurs in this chain.
    • Context: Release of prior securitization.

  • 2015-04-30 (executed) / recorded 2015-10-05 — Reel 036726/0015

    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: RFC CAPITAL HOLDINGS
    • Assignee: ORTHOSIE SYSTEMS, LLC, TEXAS
    • Correspondent: NICHOLAS B. FULTON
    • Context: Transfer to an NPE.

  • 2018-08-01 (executed) / recorded 2018-09-06 — Reel 046801/0745

    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: ORTHOSIE SYSTEMS, LLC
    • Assignee: RFC CAPITAL HOLDINGS, INC., CALIFORNIA
    • Correspondent: NICHOLAS B. FULTON. This correspondent recurs in this chain.
    • Context: Transfer within corporate group.

  • 2019-04-30 (executed) / recorded 2019-06-03 — Reel 049350/0469

    • Conveyance: Assignment
    • Assignor: RFC CAPITAL HOLDINGS, INC.
    • Assignee: RFC LENDERS OF TEXAS, LLC, TEXAS
    • Correspondent: NICHOLAS B. FULTON. This correspondent recurs in this chain.
    • Context: Transfer to an NPE.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US7430471
    2005 : Filed by Payment Protection Systems
    2006 : Assigned to Payment Protection Systems
    2007 : IP Security Agreement with Valens
    2008 : Issued
    2013 : Assigned to RFC Capital Holdings Inc
    2014 : Merger to Payment Protection Systems NV
         : Assigned to RFC Capital Holding Inc
         : Court Order Sekurus to RFC Capital
         : Release of Security Interest Valens
    2015 : Assigned to Orthosie Systems LLC
    2018 : Assigned to RFC Capital Holdings Inc
    2019 : Assigned to RFC Lenders of Texas LLC

NPE / troll-pattern signals

  1. Shell-entity transfer — present.

    • Orthosie Systems, LLC (Reel 036726/0015, recorded 2015-10-05): This entity, and its successor RFC Lenders of Texas, LLC, have been identified as plaintiffs in numerous patent infringement lawsuits involving this patent and appear to be licensing-focused entities without products. Their address, if a registered agent service, would further strengthen this.
    • RFC Lenders of Texas, LLC (Reel 049350/0469, recorded 2019-06-03): This entity is the current asserting entity in the litigation summary and shows no signs of producing products.

  2. Known asserter in the chain — present.

    • Orthosie Systems, LLC (assignee on Reel 036726/0015, recorded 2015-10-05) and RFC Lenders of Texas, LLC (assignee on Reel 049350/0469, recorded 2019-06-03) are explicitly named as plaintiffs in the provided litigation summary, indicating they are known patent asserters.

  3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — present.

  4. Cascading transfers — present.

    • Multiple transfers occurred within a short timeframe around 2014-2015:
    • This pattern of multiple assignments in close succession suggests portfolio restructuring, often preceding or related to assertion activities.

  5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear. The first recorded litigation in the provided data is 2015-10-14. The transfer to Orthosie Systems, LLC was recorded on 2015-10-05 (executed 2015-04-30). This is very close to the first listed litigation date (within a few months of execution and days of recording), suggesting it could be pre-litigation transfer, but without a definitive "first suit filed" date for this specific patent within the litigation records, it remains unclear if it falls strictly within the 6-month window prior to the very first assertion across all cases.

  6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — present.

    • The assignment on Reel 029882/0454 (recorded 2013-02-04) explicitly states the assignor as "BARCLAY, CHRISTOPHER R., CHAPTER 7 TRUSTEE FOR THE BANKRUPTCY ESTATE OF SEKURUS, INC." This clearly indicates a transfer out of a bankruptcy estate.

  7. Privateering — unclear. While RFC Lenders of Texas, LLC and Orthosie Systems, LLC are asserting entities, the context of whether an operating company transferred the patent specifically for assertion on its behalf against competitors is not explicitly stated in the provided records.

  8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain ends with RFC Lenders of Texas, LLC, which is an asserting entity, not a defensive aggregator.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence. The presence of known patent asserters (Orthosie Systems, LLC and RFC Lenders of Texas, LLC) as assignees, the clear bankruptcy fire-sale of Sekurus, Inc. (Reel 029882/0454), and the recurrence of specific correspondent attorneys (KORY & WONG LLP and NICHOLAS B. FULTON) across multiple transfers strongly indicate an NPE pattern. The cascading transfers further support this conclusion.

You can verify these records at the USPTO Patent Assignment Search: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

Generated 5/29/2026, 9:08:12 PM