A published patent application is an eighteen-month-delayed window into where a company has been spending R&D, and this week the window opened on an unexpected corner. Thinkware Corporation — a Korean firm whose patent record is built almost entirely on automotive navigation, dashcams and driver-assistance imaging — published two applications, both dated 11 June 2026, that describe satellites talking to user devices. US20260164338A1 is titled "Apparatus and method for store and forward Internet of Everything non terrestrial network," and US20260163636A1 is titled "Apparatus and method for Internet of Everything non terrestrial network." Both name the same inventors — Taekyu Han, Donghee Lim and Daewon Kim — and both describe a device of a satellite providing non-terrestrial network (NTN) access.

What the applications disclose

The two filings center on a satellite operating in a "store and forward" (S&F) mode. The broader of the pair, US20260163636A1, describes a satellite that tells a user device it supports S&F mode and then communicates on that basis, signaling the valid time of the service link between the device and the satellite, the valid time of the feeder link between the satellite and an NTN gateway, the satellite's ephemeris, its footprint, and a list of neighboring cells that also support the mode. Store-and-forward matters here because it is the connectivity pattern for a sparse, non-continuous satellite link: the satellite collects a device's data while overhead, carries it, and forwards it when a ground gateway is in view — rather than maintaining a live, always-on connection. It is the architecture for low-bandwidth devices that are out of terrestrial coverage and can tolerate latency.

A device of a satellite for providing a non-terrestrial network (NTN) access includes memory comprising instructions, at least one processor, and at least one transceiver.— Apparatus and method for Internet of Everything non terrestrial network, US20260163636A1

The companion filing, US20260164338A1, narrows in on the connection-management mechanics: a satellite functioning as an evolved node B (eNB) identifies S&F mode while in a radio-resource-control (RRC) connection with a device, tells the device it is in S&F mode, and then handles the RRC connection release — including a cause value for the release. Both applications carry CPC codes in the satellite-communications and wireless-network families (US20260163636A1 is classified in H04B 7/18519, a satellite-comms subclass; US20260164338A1 in H04W codes for access and connection control). The repeated phrase across both titles — "Internet of Everything" — frames the target as connected devices rather than handsets or broadband terminals.

Reading it against the footprint

What makes these two filings a signal is the body of work they sit against. The patent record under the Thinkware name and its predecessor "Thinkware Systems" entities runs to roughly 176 published applications, and the assignee's most frequent CPC classifications are squarely automotive and mapping: vehicle-detection imaging (G06V 20/58), location services (H04W 4/029), driver-alert subclasses (G08B 21/0272 and neighbors), event recording (G07C 5/008) and route guidance (G01C 21/36 and its variants). The recent filings around these satellite applications continue that theme — within the past two months the company also published US20260155003A1 on providing a driver's driving information and US20260154972A1 on detecting vehicle appearance with a computer-vision model. Against that backdrop, two satellite-NTN disclosures in a single week stand out.

The connective tissue is the inventor roster. Taekyu Han and Daewon Kim, named on both NTN filings, also appear on US20260122665A1, published 30 April 2026, which describes a user device deciding whether to transmit over an unlicensed-band sidelink while it is out of base-station coverage. That out-of-coverage, device-to-device theme threads directly into the store-and-forward satellite concept: both are about keeping a device connected when terrestrial infrastructure is absent. The same inventors moving from out-of-coverage sidelink to out-of-coverage satellite suggests a coordinated line of work on connectivity for devices beyond the cellular edge.

The commercial context around this vocabulary is worth stating plainly, as fact rather than forecast. Store-and-forward NTN is one of the lower-cost entry points into satellite connectivity: it does not require the continuous coverage, large antennas or high power budgets of broadband or live voice, which is why it tends to attract device makers and IoT players rather than only the operators that own constellations. A filing that describes the satellite-side "device" and the eNB-style connection handling, as US20260164338A1 does, also indicates work on the network and protocol layer, not merely the user terminal. Whether the company intends to build, license, or partner around that layer is not disclosed in the applications; the records establish only that the engineering has been done and filed.

The disclosed direction, then, is a company known for telling cars where they are and recording what they see beginning to disclose how those devices might stay connected via satellite when no cellular network is in reach. The NTN standards work the filings draw on — S&F mode, NTN gateways, satellite ephemeris and footprint signaling — is the same 3GPP-aligned vocabulary that handset makers and chip vendors have been filing around as direct-to-device satellite messaging moves from novelty to standard feature. Thinkware's footprint shows it arriving at that vocabulary from the automotive-and-IoT side rather than the handset side. The applications do not describe a launched product, and a publication is not a grant; what the record now shows is that satellite connectivity for out-of-coverage "Internet of Everything" devices has entered the company's filing pipeline, alongside a portfolio that until now read as almost purely terrestrial. For a business reader, the dates are the takeaway: two satellite-NTN applications published in the same week, sharing inventors with the company's out-of-coverage sidelink work, mark a new technical lane in a filing history that the patent record had otherwise kept on the road.