Among USPTO assignment records made publicly available during the first half of June are three transactions revealing that IP Bridge, Inc. has joined Eight Deer Ventures LLC and Hedwig Wireless Technologies LLC in acquiring patents from the same operating company source. These latest batches are the fourth for Eight Deer and the second for Hedwig this year. While IP Bridge has filed US litigation before, neither of the other two have—nor has a fourth entity, which has also picked up multiple tranches of US patents from the same place in recent weeks.

BlackBerry’s sale of 32,000 patent assets to a Key Patent Innovations Limited sub this month has dominated discussion around patent divestures to NPEs. However, in the background, a number of smaller transactions involving operating company patents have recently come to light, some notable by virtue of their new owner’s ties to third-party litigation funding. At least one of those transactions has already resulted in new NPE litigation.

Patent assignments executed in late 2022 and early 2023 continue to surface among USPTO data, with several transactions hinting at possible litigation campaigns to come. The assignees include a newly surfaced Atlantic IP Services Limited NPE, multiple NPEs apparently associated with a familiar figure in patent monetization, and an NPE that—according to public records—has received funding from a prominent litigation finance firm.

Operating company patents continued to spread among NPEs throughout 2022, including to familiar faces in patent monetization. While a number of those recipients have yet to file any litigation, several did launch new campaigns during the fourth quarter—some with the backing of third-party litigation funding.

This past quarter, US patents continued to spread among NPEs, including to familiar faces in patent monetization, and while some of those recipients have yet to file any litigation, several did launch new campaigns during Q3, targeting players in the Networking market sector, wireless carriers, e-commerce or software companies, and device makers, among others.

Recent months have seen a number of patent divestments by operating companies made public, with a range of assignees including frequent filers, publicly traded patent assertion entities, third-party funded plaintiffs, and newly formed NPEs. Divestment size has also varied widely—from a single transacted patent to thousands.