Recorded US patent assignments recently made public include several transfers of former operating company patents worth watching, including a transfer of more than 20 US assets into the hands of a newly-formed Delaware entity tied by an experienced monetization team that has run several litigation campaigns with the backing of third-party litigation funding; a transfer from the same source to another Delaware entity of uncertain management but possible connection to a prolific foreign monetization operation; and a transfer between two active NPEs of a couple of wireless communications patents received by one of them from an operating company back in April 2021. Those USPTO records also contain the divestiture of more than two dozen memory patents from an operating company and its acquired subsidiary to a recipient with suggestive ties.

Patent transfers recently made public by the USPTO include multiple assignments between NPEs, several of which have litigated previously received assets, but others of which are new and have yet to file suit. They also include a grant to the US Treasury Department of four assets, one of which was “litigated” through this past July, when Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright, on the court’s own motion, brought the campaign to an end.

With a patent portfolio reportedly comprising over 3,000 patent assets providing “protection in North America, Europe and Asia”, Sun Patent Trust (SPT) has filed its first US patent case to date, suing HTC (2:20-cv-00286) over four wireless communications patents received from Panasonic. Formed in 2015, SPT is among a steadily growing list of patent holders choosing to launch their first patent suits amid the recession brought on by COVID-19.

RPX took notice, among the USPTO assignment records made available during the first half of August, of transactions involving recently asserted patents (e.g. to an affiliate of IP Edge LLC) as well as at least one assignment suggesting that new litigation is coming (i.e. to Red Dragon Innovations, LLC). August has also seen clean-up activity by Intellectual Ventures LLC in an ongoing automotive campaign.