This past week, the USPTO posted a late 2018 patent assignment from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) to MEC Management, LLC, an NPE “formed under the tribal laws” of the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota. That tribe was the subject of considerable press in 2017, when it launched a litigation campaign (via affiliate MEC Resources, LLC) amid a heated public debate over the issue of tribal sovereign immunity.