Carl Pei's Nothing now owns Andy Rubin's Essential

[mood]

Carl Pei's Nothing now owns Andy Rubin's Essential

 

 

Back in 2017, a new brand called Essential was introduced, and while it was technically just another Android brand, the thing that made it different was that it was actually started by Android's co-founder, Andy Rubin. It didn't work out. The startup made one phone, the PH-1, and eventually folded a year ago.

 

However, it appears that the brand will live on. According to some documents at the UK Intellectual Property Office that were spotted by 9to5Google, the Essential brand has been transferred to Carl Pei's Nothing Technologies Ltd.

 

If you're unfamiliar with Nothing, it's the new venture from the OnePlus co-founder, and it's even managed to get some funding from Alphabet. Nothing is working on wireless earbuds at the moment, and it's also planning to make some devices for the smart home space using a new Ambient OS. It's unclear what it plans to do with a smartphone brand like Essential.

 

But now, Nothing owns all things Essential. That includes the name, the name of the device (PH-1), and all logos associated with the company. It's entirely possible that Nothing wants to get into the smartphone business, even though that's an industry that Carl Pei has already tackled with OnePlus and succeeded, but Essential doesn't really carry the brand recognition that would put Nothing over the top.

 

The application was filed on November 11, and it was finalized on January 6.

 

 

Source: Carl Pei's Nothing now owns Andy Rubin's Essential

[worm_mba]

 

Carl Pei left OnePlus in the year 2020, aiming for a new project that’d be revealed in 2021. Here in 2021, the company was revealed to have the name “Nothing Technologies Limited.” Or just “Nothing.” Today it was revealed that Nothing took over ownership of what remains of Android founder Andy Rubin’s smartphone technology company Essential.

 

Last week it was revealed that Nothing was getting some monetary backing from Alphabet’s VC arm. This week, 9to5Google found a set of listings in the UK Intellectual Property Office. It was revealed that Andy Rubin “signed over ownership” of Essential over to Nothing Technologies Limited.

 

The process for moving Essential ownership to Nothing began in November of 2020. It would appear that everything Essential is now officially under ownership of Nothing – at least in the UK. UPDATE: Per UK records, reassignment of ownership was made not between companies, but people – from Andy Rubin (id 1528181), to Carl Pei (id 1528125). The “effective date of assignment” was November 25, 2020, with received date for full assignment on December 18, 2020.

 

This likely suggests the companies have agreed to combine their efforts – or that Nothing decided to use the massive amounts of cash they just received from funders to buy Essential for their patents. They’ve been patenting products like “mobile device” and “hone assistant device” and “handheld writing implement form factor mobile device” since 2017.

 

ALSO NOTE: Essential Products, INC. continued to file for patents through March of 2018 according to the USPTO. Their most recently granted patent was in March of 2020. Two patents were granted by the USPTO for Essential in March of 2020, one for a “handheld mobile device for adaptive vehicular operations”. The other was “modular light detection and ranging device of a vehicular navigation system.” They’ve not yet been reassigned to Nothing.

 

UPDATE: Further investors were revealed – Google Ventures, Steve Huffman (CEO, co-founder of Reddit), Kevin Lin (co-founder of Twitch), Josh Buckley (CEO of Product Hunt), Liam Casey (founder and CEO, PCH), Paddy Cosgrave (founder of Web Summit), and Casey Neistat (YouTuber). The company currently has job listings in Delhi India, Shenzhen China, Scockholm, and London.

 

Source: OnePlus founder’s Nothing now owns Android founder’s Essential

[Karlston]

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