In a similar vein, people should stop saying that the "assignment was completed" on March 29. The patent was issued by the USPTO on that date. Novint transferred their interest in that application sometime last year. They also transferred their right to some 7 other IPs. 5 of those were actual patents at the time. Three of those were applications for patents. If my read of the USPTO assignment summary is correct, two applications remain outstanding. But Novint's part in that process is done. There is some possibility that the exchange was part of some larger restructuring, but Novint wouldn't have reassigned those patents without some kind of structured arrangement, and if Christoff is worth his salt, Novint would have needed reassurances at every stage, for every item.
We don't know what Novint received in consideration of those patents, how the payment was structured, and whether remittance was contingent on approval. I guess there is some possibility that this was part of a larger buyout, but again, given the very lengthy timeframe we're talking about, it most likely would have been incremental. So instead of speculating on what could happen, we could indeed be speculating on what did, and if that's true, it's worrisome that we don't know already.
Someone mentioned 8-Ks. I'm no expert on corporate of securities law, but if receipt of those patents was material, and Facebook has indeed received certain IPs already, wouldn't they have filed the 8-K by now? Is there an exception where they could delay to completion of a larger agreement?
