Invalidity dossier
US 6721150
Added 9/21/2026, 10:42:34 AM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US6721150B1
Title: Clamping circuit for use in computer system
Patent number / application: US6721150B1; application US09/736,846, filed 2000-12-12.
Priority date: 2000-12-12 (listed as an assumption, not a legal conclusion).
Publication (grant) date: 2004-04-13.
Inventors: Edward C. Guerrero, Jr.; Barry Kent Kates; Christopher Eric Tressler.
Assignee: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (original and current assignee as listed).
Legal status (as listed): Expired – Lifetime; adjusted expiration 2021-06-19. Google notes the status is an assumption and not a legal conclusion.
Classification: H02H9/04 — emergency protective circuit arrangements for limiting excess current or voltage without disconnection, responsive to excess voltage.
Purpose: Components in computer systems operate within tolerated voltage ranges; operating outside those ranges can reduce reliability, destroy components, or cause data loss and improper operation (for example, noise causing logic gates to produce erroneous output signals). The invention relates to a clamping circuit in a computer system that prevents damage or erroneous behavior caused by voltage spikes and other over-voltage conditions.
Plain-language scope (per the excerpt): The computer system includes a clamping circuit having a detecting stage and a clamping stage. The detecting stage detects when the supply voltage increases beyond a first voltage level, which may be lower than a maximum voltage level — the maximum being a level that causes erroneous behavior in some components receiving the supply voltage. Upon detecting the increase, the detecting stage activates the clamping stage, which is configured to reduce the supply voltage. Once the supply voltage rail falls below the first voltage level, the detecting stage may stop activating the clamping stage. In one embodiment the detecting stage includes a voltage divider coupled to the supply voltage; when the supply voltage exceeds the first voltage level, the voltage divider activates the clamping stage, which may reduce the supply voltage by shunting current to ground.
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not provide the full claims, the complete detailed description, or the drawings (only figure references such as FIG. 1 appear). It does not establish litigation, ownership transfers beyond the listed assignment, validity, or prior art. The final sentence is truncated ("the cl…"), so that portion of the description is unavailable here.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6721150](/patent/US6721150)/en
Generated 10/1/2026, 10:01:12 PM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
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Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.