Eye opening. Usually employees have to sign something agreeing that anything they create on the job is company property and that it stays the property of the company after the employee leaves the company. Not Leena though. She holds the patents!!!
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Kinga is well aware. Notice that she posts constantly on Instgram and Eddie is nowhere to be seen in years.
Wow, this thread really shows the overconfidence and incompetence of many. Had to come out eventually I guess..
Thank you for sharing your knowledge, @2qix, don't mind that fool.
Regarding the comment about my post saying Leena gets no benefit that "I should keep my day job". Well, I'm retired, but thanks for the thought. 30+ years as a senior exec in CPG world, dealt with patents all the time. All IP developed at the company is owned by the company. "Inventors" get small bonuses, they do not get equity. Having your name listed as inventor on a patent means absolutely nothing. Who the rights are assigned to means absolutely everything. So, before you get snarky, perhaps you should know something about what you're talking about?
ABF = Asset-Based Financing, btw. It's dressed up all fancy for big companies to do it, but its equivalent on the individual level is something like title loans and pawn shops. You hand over your car title or your valuable possessions, in exchange for some short-term cash less than the real value of what you handed over, with the hope of being able to pay it off and get your stuff back later.
Here's why the patents were reassigned to JPP. It's collateral for more loans to keep the stores' doors open a little while longer.
http://www.abfjournal.com/dailynews/jpp-agents-100mm-term-loan-for-sears/
January 11, 2018
JPP Agents $100MM Term Loan for Sears
Sears Holdings has raised $100 million in new financing and is pursuing an additional $200 million. In addition, Sears Holdings has amended its existing second lien notes, maturing October 15, 2018, to increase its borrowing base advance rate for inventory and defer its collateral coverage test and restart it with the second quarter of 2018. The company is in discussions with certain lenders regarding additional transactions to improve the terms on potentially more than $1 billion of its non-first lien debt.
...
Sears closed a $100 million term loan, supported by ground leases and select intellectual property. Under certain circumstances and with the consent of the lender, the company will be entitled to raise an additional $200 million against the same collateral. According to a related 8-K filing, JPP, an affiliate of Sear’s Chairman Edward Lampert’s hedge fund ESL investments, agented the loan.
The term loan facility also contains an uncommitted incremental loan feature that, subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, would permit up to an additional $200 million to be borrowed from other counterparties and secured by the same collateral as the initial loan under the term loan facility.
...
I did a patent assignment search on the government website for the patent office. It's a searchable database recording all assignments from the 80s through today. I used the name Munjal for the search.
Official record is that Leena currently has ONE patent assigned to Sears Brands LLC.
The long list of patents that she previously assigned to Sears Brands LLC are as of Jan 2018 reassigned to a company called JPP. JPP is out of Bar Harbor FL. It was the security interest (read $$$) that was reassigned. So Sears Brands LLC doesn't hold the patents anymore.
Guess who's hedge fund controls JPP? You are right. Eddie Lampert's ESL. So Eddie through his hedge fund holds the security interest in the patents, NOT SHC or any of ITS subsidiaries. He has 229 patents, not all "invented" by Leena.
Every patent I searched with her name is assigned to Sears as would be the case for any patent from an Apple, GE, GM, etc, etc, etc employee. If you think theres anything unusual about that your ignorance on the subject shows.
Pretty stupid patents though that are worthless in the bankruptcy. Hardly worth the cost of filing them.
".....sorry, she gets no benefit from being listed as the inventor......"
You obviously know nothing about patent law. Keep your day job.
sorry, she gets no benefit from being listed as the inventor. The application requires the name of an inventor, and it is very typical for companies to just put a bunch of names in as a perk, doesn't give any financial benefit. The "Assignee" is Sears, that's who owns and gets the economic benefit from the patent. Not defending her by any stretch, but there's nothing to see here.
I've wondered about the Kinga- Leena situation myself. Clearly in the company's eyes, I mean Eddie's eyes, Leena does no wrong even as the company does worse. If I were Eddie's wife, I would question the favoritism shown to Leena.
I wonder what Kinga thinks about Eddie's relationship with Leena, or if she is even aware.
It's a little too close for comfort. Why would Eddie let Leena in on the patents?
This patent deal is between Leena AND Eddie. The patents are owned jointly. I was the one who tipped the board off in an earlier thread.
All of these platforms and patents are obviously portable. Sears fails, and Eddie/Leena sells the Pebble platform to other businesses.
Sweet deal huh? I think they are both wastes of oxygen.
Disgusting people.
@TAqnLMV-vcu I have a friend that works at Walmart he has worked less than me in retail and he told me was getting already pay increases. This was like 3 years ago I think at that time (minimum wage in my state at that time must of been $10) was making almost $12. I told him I never got a raise at all. He not only does he get a raise their is employee of the month and if their is no accidents they get like a bonus on their check its insane compared to what we get.
This is one of the reasons Sears is failing. Working in the stores is hard work and the associates need to be compensated. Doesn't Wal Mart Pay 10.00 per hour to start? Anyone working in retail knows that happy employees translates to happy customers, at least most of the time.
is there something between Eddie and Leena?
@TAqnLMV-fqp Thats plain disgusting like come on like really? The company each year does so bad and she keeps getting insane raises. We the regular asociates cant even get a .10 increase how you mentioned it wow...
Leena found herself a very sweet deal years ago. Eddie. There is no other explanation. Her contributions are generally harmful to the health of the company yet she continues to prosper financially. This has gone on for years. The worse the company does, the more money she makes.
SEC filings show that Leena's salary before bonuses, etc has gone up from $205K in June 2011 to 375K in Oct 2012 to 600K in May 2015. Bonuses and perks increased for at the same rate too.
It's a good thing the company was able to retain Leena, she's brought so much to SHC. Practically transformed it herself.
/sarcasm. Minimum wage employees can't get a 10 cent raise but Leena doubles her salary every few years???? While coming up with a million bad ideas that don't work.