US 10634565

I'll search for litigation/CAFC docket information on this patent while grounding the summary in the authoritative patent text provided.

Search results: litigation / CAFC docket

I ran targeted searches for US 10,634,565 against USPTO records and Federal Circuit 2026 dockets. No CAFC 2026 appeal, IPR, or district-court docket naming US 10,634,565 was returned. Searches for the number produced either no results or unrelated matters (e.g., an unrelated Nuvoton v. Microchip IPR concerning U.S. 9,442,873; an Oasis Tooling cert petition on § 101; a Nuvoton/Winbond declaratory-judgment complaint). I cannot confirm any post-grant or appellate activity for this patent, and I flag that as uncertain rather than asserting "no litigation exists."

The summary below is grounded in the authoritative full text supplied in the prompt (Google Patents copy of US10634565B2).

Bibliographic summary — US 10,634,565 B2

Abstract (as published): A current source circuit provides a test current to a temperature sensing load, which generates a test voltage in response. A processing circuit determines the type of the temperature sensing load from that test voltage and determines a temperature from the type and a temperature sensing voltage generated by the load.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — apparatus (auto-detects sensor type before measuring):
A temperature sensing chip has a current source circuit tied to a sensing voltage input terminal (TIN) that a sensing load plugs into. On power-up/detection, the current source pushes a small test current into the load; the load's response test voltage appears at TIN. A processing circuit reads that test voltage, uses it to identify what kind of sensor is attached, then computes the environmental temperature using the correct interpretation for that sensor type. The claim specifically covers two cases: if the load is a thermistor, the processor derives the thermistor-sensed temperature from the temperature sensing voltage; if the load is a temperature sensing diode, the processor derives the diode-sensed temperature from the temperature sensing voltage. (Note: the thermistor/diode distinction here is the interpretation branch; the different drive schemes are recited in dependent claim 3.)

Claim 6 — method (same concept as steps):
(1) Provide a test current to the load so the load produces a test voltage at the sensing voltage input terminal; (2) determine the load's type from that test voltage; (3) determine an environmental temperature from the type and the temperature sensing voltage produced by the load — again with the thermistor-vs-diode conditional language that the processing circuit resolves the temperature according to which device is present.

Key dependent claims (context)

• Claim 2: adds an amplification circuit between the processing circuit and TIN, amplifying both the test voltage and the temperature sensing voltage (embodiments of FIGS. 3 and 5).
• Claim 3: adds a reference voltage source and a resistor between the source's output and TIN. Thermistor case → current source is turned off and the reference voltage is applied, producing a temperature sensing voltage at the resistor/thermistor common node (a divider). Diode case → reference source disabled and the current source supplies an operation current to the diode, which develops the temperature sensing voltage accordingly.
• Claim 4: particularizes the current source circuit as first variable current source (test current) + second variable current source (operation current) + a multiplexer controlled by the processing circuit to route either current to the load.
• Claim 5: the operation current is greater than the test current.
• Claims 7–8: method counterparts — claim 7 recites outputting a reference voltage for a thermistor load and providing an operation current for a diode load; claim 8 recites operation current > test current.

Specification context worth noting: the patent gives example discrimination voltages — thermistor test voltage ≈ 0.1 V; diode test voltage ≈ 0.5–0.7 V — and example test current of 1 µA–5 µA. It also describes handling a missing load (processor sees the current source's power voltage) and a short at TIN (processor sees ground or system voltage and issues a notification/shutdown message). The resistor may be internal or external to the chip. Claim 6's conditional language refers to "the processing circuit" even though it is drafted as a method claim — I am reading the text literally rather than correcting it.

Confidence notes: The bibliographic data and claim analysis are high-confidence, taken directly from the authoritative full text. The absence of CAFC 2026 activity is a negative search result, not a verified docket clearance — treat it as "nothing found," and verify against the Federal Circuit's PACER/CM-ECF and the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board if a definitive litigation check is required.

I'll search litigation databases for US patent 10634565.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases and sources.

Let me try additional targeted sources.

Litigation Search Results — U.S. Patent No. 10,634,565

Conclusion: No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,634,565 was found.

I searched for litigation records tied to this specific patent number (checking web-indexed litigation aggregators, PTAB/Unified Patents-style sources, and general docket references). I did not identify any district court complaint, ITC action, CAFC appeal, PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR), or other adversarial proceeding in which US 10,634,565 is the asserted or challenged patent.

Case-by-case table

Important caveats

• This is a negative finding, not a certification of non-litigation. Public web sources and general search coverage are not complete substitutes for Docket Navigator, PACER, Lex Machina, or the USPTO PTAB docket, which I could not query directly. A patent can also be asserted in a sealed complaint, an arbitration, or a state-court action that would not surface in a general web search.
• Scope of number matching. Per the strict instruction, I interpreted the identifier literally as 10,634,565. Search hits for the unrelated string "10634565" (e.g., UK company number 10634565 for "Beatnik Clothing Limited") and the separate Taiwanese patent/apparatus references (e.g., TW 106134520 / TWI668931B, also assigned to Nuvoton) were not treated as matches.
• No auto-correction. No near-number registrations (e.g., 10,634,655 or 10,634,565-family variants) were substituted for the queried patent.

Context about the patent (from the patent record itself)

• Patent: US 10,634,565 B2 — "Temperature sensing apparatus and temperature sensing method thereof"
• Assignee: Nuvoton Technology Corporation (original and current assignee)
• Inventors: Shih-Feng Huang; Jia-Yan Su
• Priority: 2016-12-01 (TW 105139629); PCT/US filing 2017-11-30; granted 2020-04-28
• Family: TW I614485B; CN 108132108B; US 2018/0156671 A1
• Legal events of record: assignment to Nuvoton (2017-12-05); maintenance fee paid (2023-10-02, 4th year). Notably, no litigation-related legal events appear in the patent's prosecution/assignment record.

Recommended next steps for confirmation

To definitively confirm the negative result, I recommend querying (paywalled/proprietary) sources I could not fully access here:

1. Docket Navigator / Lex Machina — search by patent number, all districts + ITC + PTAB.
2. PACER — party search for "Nuvoton Technology Corporation" as plaintiff in patent cases.
3. Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) and USPTO PTAB docket for the patent number.
4. CAFC — search for appeals naming the patent.

If you'd like, I can re-run targeted searches once tool access allows (e.g., specific queries against the Unified Patents portal or PACER party names for Nuvoton).

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 10,634,565: 0 (0 IPR, 0 PGR, 0 CBM). The structured ODP block is the canonical source and returns no proceedings, and my independent web searches (Google Patents litigation/proceeding data, Unified Patents PTAB portal, Docket Alarm, ptacts.uspto.gov petition text, and general PTAB coverage) surfaced no petition, institution decision, FWD, termination, or Federal Circuit appeal naming this patent. Breakdown by status is therefore: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0.

Bottom line for a defendant: the patent is untested at the PTAB, not hardened by it. All 8 claims (independent claims 1 and 6, dependents 2–5 and 7–8) remain in force completely un-narrowed by any AIA trial. You get no free "the claims are already canceled" argument, but you also inherit no § 315(e)(2) estoppel — the entire prior-art universe is open to you.

That said, the absence is itself a weak signal. US 10,634,565 issued 2020-04-28 to Nuvoton Technology Corp (a large operating-entity semiconductor company, not an NPE), is currently Active with an adjusted expiration of 2038-07-19, and the 4th-year maintenance fee was paid on 2023-10-02. This looks like a portfolio/defensive asset in a chipmaker's patent estate rather than a litigation-assertion patent, which is consistent with the total absence of PTAB challenges. Nuvoton is itself an experienced IPR petitioner (e.g., IPR2020-00394, Nuvoton Technology Corp v. Microchip Technology Inc., regarding US 7,930,576, terminated on settlement 2020-04-16), so the company knows the forum well — it just has not had this patent attacked in it.

No proceedings to report

There is no proceeding number, petitioner, panel, ground, institution decision, FWD, settlement, or appeal to itemize. Per the task constraints, I am not going to manufacture one, and I am not going to construct a claim-by-claim disposition table for a trial that never happened.

One trap worth flagging explicitly — do not confuse this patent with a superficially similar one:

• US 10,033,465 — Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Ramot at Tel Aviv University Ltd., IPR2020-00122, filed 2019-11-05, institution denied 2020-05-15, petitioner's notice of appeal filed 2020-07-16, post-institution fee refund issued in 2021. That is a different patent (appl. 15/298,327, optical/coherent-detection subject matter) and has nothing to do with US 10,634,565. The digit strings "10,033,465" and "10,634,565" are close enough that sloppy database lookups conflate them. Nothing in IPR2020-00122 is citable against or for US 10,634,565.
• Likewise, the PTAB hits that do reference a "345 patent" (e.g., PGR2021-00113/00114 on US 11,096,345, RiceTec v. BASF) or a "'705 patent" are unrelated patents and unrelated technology.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All eight claims of US 10,634,565 are UNTESTED at the PTAB. Nothing is canceled; nothing has been confirmed through an adverse proceeding. Independent claim 1 claims a temperature sensing apparatus comprising a current source circuit that injects a test current into a temperature sensing load via a sensing voltage input terminal, and a processing circuit that (a) determines the type of load from the resulting test voltage and (b) determines an environmental temperature from that type plus a subsequently generated temperature sensing voltage, with express branches for thermistor vs. temperature sensing diode. Independent claim 6 is the method counterpart. Dependents 2–5 add an amplification circuit, the reference-voltage-source-plus-resistor architecture for the thermistor mode, a first/second variable current source with a multiplexer, and operation current > test current. Dependents 7–8 mirror claims 3 and 5 in method form. The prosecution history shows a non-final action mailed 2019-09-16 and a notice of allowance 2019-12-23, so there was a real § 102/§ 103 fight before allowance — the allowed claim set was narrowed during prosecution relative to the originally filed claims, which is useful context if you are assessing what the examiner actually had in front of him.

Estoppel landscape. Because there has never been an instituted AIA trial on this patent, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is entirely absent. No petitioner, and no privy of any petitioner, is barred from raising anything. If you are a defendant, you are free to choose between (i) a district-court § 102/§ 103/§ 112 defense, (ii) an IPR petition under §§ 311–319, or (iii) both — subject only to the normal § 315(b) one-year bar running from service of a complaint alleging infringement, and the real-world Fintiv-successor discretionary-denial risk if you are in parallel litigation. Conversely, there is no prior PTAB record (no claim construction, no expert testimony, no Board findings) to borrow from, so your invalidity case has to be built from scratch, including your own expert declaration. The 8 references cited on the face of the patent — US 3,420,104 (Bell Telephone, semiconductor junction temperature measurement); US 3,722,283 (Kettering); US 6,342,997 (Therm-O-Disc, diode temperature sensor with adjustable current source); TWI434032 (Marvell, temperature sensing system); US 7,844,764 (Honeywell, adjustable I/O mapping); TWI424441 (Nanya, temperature sensing system); US 8,727,616 (Fairchild, differential thermistor circuit); and US 2014/0219316 (Denso, temperature detection device) — are the obvious starting points, but note that art cited on the face of the patent and not substantively applied by the examiner is generally NOT a § 325(d) bar (the Board has consistently held that a reference neither applied nor discussed by the examiner does not weigh in favor of discretionary denial). That cuts in your favor.

Pattern signals. No petitioner has filed anything on this patent — not once, let alone repeatedly. There is no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) in the chain; Unified's public case portal has no entry for this patent number. The patent owner has pursued no PTAB appeal because there has been no adverse PTAB decision to appeal. The only post-grant-relevant activity on the public record is the routine maintenance-fee payment in 2023. The one genuine strategic consideration is that Nuvoton is a sophisticated, deep-pocketed patent owner that routinely appears before the Board as a petitioner; do not assume that a quiet record means a soft target if you actually assert against or get asserted by them.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant with no complaint yet served: you are inside the § 315(b) window only once a complaint alleging infringement is served on you. There is no estoppel and no prior PTAB record constraining your invalidity theory. Consider commissioning a pre-emptive freedom-to-operate / invalidity study against the eight cited references plus the 2016-priority-date art, since the effective priority date is 2016-12-01 (TW 105139629) and the § 102/§ 103 window is art before that date.
• If you have been served and want the PTAB route: budget for a full petition from zero — no borrowed record, no prior claim constructions, no admitted art. Verify the § 315(b) deadline from the actual service date, and evaluate the current discretionary-denial regime (the PTO's post-Fintiv guidance and the 2025 "Interim Processes for PTAB Workload Management" framework, plus the "settled expectations" institution policy that has been the subject of significant 2025–2026 litigation and rulemaking activity) before committing.
• If you want to confirm the negative yourself: check the USPTO PTAB E2E / Patent Trial and Appeal Board EndPoint system (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) and the USPTO Open Data Portal for the patent number, and cross-check Unified Patents' PTAB case portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab) and Docket Alarm's PTAB docket. A clean result across those four is strong confirmation.
• Verify before relying on this: my negative finding rests on the canonical structured ODP block (authoritative as of the stated ingest) plus web search. If your matter turns on this, re-run the PTAB E2E lookup on the day you file, because a petition could have been filed after the ingest date. If anyone represents that "claims 1–5 of the '565 patent were canceled in IPR," demand the proceeding number and the FWD — on the current record that representation is false, and it is most likely a confusion with US 10,033,465 or US 11,096,345.

Nothing here is legal advice, and no validity opinion is expressed. I found no proceeding documents to link; the only specific docket I could point you to for a different patent is IPR2020-00122 (US 10,033,465), included above solely as a disambiguation warning.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 10,634,565 B2

Method note (read first). I could not open the USPTO Assignment Center search UI directly in this session; the assignment data below is reconstructed from (a) the authoritative full text supplied in the prompt, whose Google Patents "Legal Events" block reproduces the recorded assignment's reel/frame and free-format text, and (b) targeted web searches run against PTAB filings, Docket Alarm, RPX Insight, and Patent Center-hosted documents. The one field I could not recover from any source is the correspondent (recording attorney/agent) of record — see the caveat in the Assignment Timeline and in NPE signal #3. Verify reel 044292/0701 at assignmentcenter.uspto.gov (same records as assignment.uspto.gov) before relying on it in a filing.

Inventors

Both inventors appear on the original US filing (US 15/828,290) and on the Taiwan priority application TW 105139629 (filed 2016-12-01), consistent with an in-house R&D team filing through their employer.

Pattern check — inventor departure: No indication found. I searched for inventor-name activity around the 2016–2018 window and found nothing suggesting either inventor left Nuvoton within 12 months of filing, and nothing indicating an inventor-retained (unassigned) interest. Note the negative contrast: in the parallel Nuvoton/Winbond–adjacent NPE dispute over the "Adams Patents," the complaint specifically pleaded that one asserted patent (US 7,251,752) had no assignment recorded and remained inventor-owned. No such gap exists here — both inventors assigned at filing.

Confidence: employer attribution is inferred to a high degree of reliability from a same-day assignment, not confirmed from an employment record. Treat as strong circumstantial, not documentary.

Original assignee

Nuvoton Technology Corporation (Taiwan; principal place of business No. 4, Creation Rd. III, Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan, per its own pleadings indexed on RPX Insight). Original and current assignee — no post-issuance transfer is recorded.

• Line of business: fab-lite semiconductor/IC design house. Core product families include microcontrollers (MCU), hardware-monitoring / super-I/O chips, audio ICs, and specialty analog. Its US selling subsidiary is Nuvoton Technology Corporation America (San Jose, CA), which sells the parent's super-I/O products in the US.
• Corporate lineage: spun off from Winbond Electronics (2008); publicly listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange as 4919. Because it is Taiwan-listed and not an SEC registrant, there are no 10-K/8-K filings to cross-reference — a gap in the requested source chain, not an omission on my part. Winbond remains the referenceable parent-lineage entity.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Very likely on the technology, not verified on the SKU. The specification's own stated application is "detecting a temperature of a chip inside a computer" and server temperature control — exactly the function of Nuvoton's hardware-monitor / super-I/O and MCU thermal-sensing lines. I could not confirm a specific part number that practices claims 1–8 within this session, so treat "ships an embodying product" as high-plausibility / unverified, not established.
• Current status: operating. Patent status Active, adjusted expiration listed as 2038-07-19; 4th-year maintenance fee paid 2023-10-02 (large entity). Original entity is intact, not acquired, dissolved, or in bankruptcy.

Assignment timeline

One recorded assignment exists for this patent. Chronological list:

• 2017-11-30 (executed) / recorded 2017-12-05 — Reel 044292/0701
  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: HUANG, SHIH-FENG; SU, JIA-YAN (individuals, jointly)
  • Assignee: NUVOTON TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION (Taiwan)
  • Correspondent: ⚠️ Not recoverable from the sources available to me. The Google Patents legal-events block reproduces only the assignment's free-format text and omits the recording correspondent, and my searches for the reel/frame did not surface the cover-sheet image. This is a data gap, not an absence of a correspondent — every recorded assignment has one. Retrieve it from the Assignment Center record for Reel 044292/0701 (correspondent field) before drawing any inference about recording counsel. On recurrence: I found no evidence of the same recording firm appearing on multiple links in this chain, because this chain has only one link and the field is blank in my source.
  • Context: Initial employee-inventor assignment to the employer at filing. Executed on the US filing date; this is a routine in-house rights-capture, not an acquisition, fire-sale, reorg, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.

There are no security agreements, mergers, change-of-name records, licenses-of-record, releases, corrections, or post-issuance transfers on file for US 10,634,565. The prosecution/assignment record's only post-grant entry is the 2023 maintenance-fee payment. Per the task instruction, I state plainly: the Assignment Center has no post-issuance assignment records for this patent, which means the original assignee — Nuvoton Technology Corporation (Taiwan) — still owns it.

Separately filed family members (US not affected): CN 108132108 B (CN app 201710208492.7, filed 2017-03-31) and TW I614485 B / TW 201821777 A, all Nuvoton. Note the CN application was filed before the US case and even before the TW priority date's US counterpart sequence — a normal foreign-filing-order artifact, not an ownership event.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10634565
    2016 : TW priority application filed 1 Dec
    2017 : US application filed 30 Nov
         : Inventors assign to Nuvoton Technology Corp
         : Assignment recorded 5 Dec Reel 044292 Frame 0701
    2020 : Patent granted 28 Apr
    2023 : 4th year maintenance fee paid 2 Oct

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
The only transfer of record runs from two named individual inventors to Nuvoton Technology Corporation, a named, publicly listed (TWSE: 4919), revenue-generating IC design company with a US sales subsidiary. No "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix appears anywhere in the chain; there is no registered-agent-service address and no single-member LLC. Cited record: Reel 044292/0701, executed 2017-11-30.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT.
Neither the original nor the current assignee matches any entry on the requested NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). Nuvoton appears in litigation as a manufacturer plaintiff in ordinary competitor disputes and also as a defendant in third-party patent suits (the PMAA/AFTG "Adams Patents" campaign, in which Nuvoton and Winbond filed declaratory-judgment actions) — the profile of an operating company on both sides of the "v." including as an NPE target, not an NPE. No RPX or Unified Patents asserter-directory hit was found for this patent.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (thumb on the scale: not a finding).
There is only one link in the chain, so the recurrence test cannot even be run; and the correspondent field is not present in the source text I hold (see timeline caveat). Recording counsel for Reel 044292/0701 may be a well-known prosecution firm — several handle Nuvoton's US filings — but I will not name one because I could not retrieve the cover sheet, and per your own instruction a single appearance is not a finding anyway. Action item: pull the correspondent from Assignment Center; if it recurs across Nuvoton-family recordings it is informative about prosecution counsel, but with one chain link it can never satisfy this signal.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
Zero consecutive assignments, let alone chained LLCs inside 24 months. The chain is one link, executed 2017-11-30.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT.
The sole assignment predates the 2020-04-28 grant and sits ~5 years before the first (and only, and in fact never-filed-against-this-patent) earliest date a suit could have run. No infringement suit naming US 10,634,565 was identified in the prior sections of this analysis, so there is no "pre-suit transfer" trigger to evaluate.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 for Nuvoton or its lineage; no assignment-on-sale record; the 2023 fee payment confirms continuing, funded maintenance. Distinguished from the Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid pattern.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT for this patent.
Nuvoton retains ownership; there is no transfer to an assertion vehicle. ⚠️ However — flag this disambiguation for the whole Nuvoton-name family, because it is a live monetization pattern at a different Nuvoton entity: Nuvoton Technology Corporation Japan (the ex-Panasonic Semiconductor Solutions entity — not the Taiwan parent that owns US 10,634,565) assigned a 25-patent portfolio to Advanced Integrated Circuit Process LLC, a Texas LLC at 825 Watters Creek Blvd., Suite 250, Allen, TX 75013, executed and recorded 2024-07-30 at Reel 068118/0314. That assignee is now a serial plaintiff (AICP v. United Microelectronics, E.D. Tex. 2:24-cv-00730, filed 2024-09-06; TSMC IPRs 2025-01211 and 2025-01302). US 10,634,565 does not appear on that Exhibit A list (which runs 7,215,028 / 7,400,045 / 7,439,623 / 7,579,227 / 7,632,751 / 7,737,510 / 7,923,764 / 7,935,623 / 7,964,969 / 8,039,968 / 8,084,826 / 8,198,686 / 8,253,180 / 8,293,572→8,329,572 / 8,334,597 / 8,513,724 / 8,536,704 / 8,564,136 / 8,587,076 / 8,648,472 / 8,729,641 / 8,796,779 / 8,884,373 / 8,907,425 / 8,969,970). Do not conflate the two Nuvoton entities or the two portfolios — the digit strings and the shared corporate stem invite exactly that error.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent remains in the operating company's estate; it has not been neutralized.

Verdict

Insufficient data — the assignment record contains only the original assignment, which is the express trigger for this category, so no post-issuance NPE pattern can be tested.

Justification (2–3 sentences): The entire recorded chain is a single link — inventors HUANG, SHIH-FENG and SU, JIA-YAN assigning to Nuvoton Technology Corporation, executed 2017-11-30 and recorded 2017-12-05 at Reel 044292/0701 — with no subsequent conveyance, no security interest, no change of name, and no post-grant activity other than the 2023-10-02 maintenance-fee payment. Every affirmative datum points away from an NPE characterization: the assignee is a publicly listed, product-shipping semiconductor designer (TWSE: 4919, Hsinchu) that remains the owner, and zero of the eight NPE signals is present. If a classification is required notwithstanding the single-link record, the evidence supports operating-company-held, non-asserting — but I record Insufficient data because the absence of any transfer means the NPE screen is untestable rather than passed.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "10634565" or Reel 044292/0701) — and, for the disambiguation above, Reel 068118/0314.

Caveats: (i) the recording correspondent was not retrievable and is the single most valuable missing field; (ii) "no Nuvoton product embodying the claims" and "inventors remained employed" are negative/unverified findings, not clearances; (iii) I did not have paid Docket Navigator / Lex Machina / Docket Alarm party-search access, so other unrecorded or non-US-chain transactions (e.g., a security interest filed only abroad) would not appear here. Nothing in this memo is a legal opinion or a chain-of-title certification.

I'll research each cited reference for US 10,634,565. Let me run targeted searches.

Now let me research the remaining cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,634,565 B2

Building on the earlier-generated sections (bibliographic record, claim overview, and the litigation/PTAB negative findings, which I do not repeat here). This section addresses only the prior-art citations of record for US 10,634,565 and their § 102 significance.

Source of the citation list: the "Citations (8)" block on the face of US 10,634,565 B2 (Google Patents copy supplied in the prompt), which is the authoritative patent text for this matter. I treat the identifiers literally and do not auto-correct them.

Important procedural distinction (frequently overlooked): On the record, only two of the eight references are marked as cited by the examiner (Google's asterisk convention): US 8,727,616 B2 and US 2014/0219316 A1. The other six are unmarked in the citation table, i.e., they read as applicant/IDS references that the examiner did not affirmatively apply. That matters: examiner-cited-but-not-applied art generally is not a § 325(d) discretionary-denial bar, and even the two asterisked references were, on the face of the record, accommodated rather than used as a rejection basis (the case went non-final 2019-09-16 → allowance 2019-12-23).

1. The eight citations of record — full citations, dates, descriptions

Priority-date screening: All eight published before the effective priority date of 2016-12-01 (TW 105139629), so all eight qualify at least as § 102(a)(1) printed publications/patents. There is no 2016-reference-date problem for the main set.

2. What the claims actually require (for the § 102 test)

Reprising the claim construction from the earlier section: claim 1 requires a current source circuit that (i) injects a test current into a load via the sensing voltage input terminal, (ii) the load generates a test voltage in response, (iii) a processing circuit that determines a type of the temperature sensing load from that test voltage, and then (iv) determines environmental temperature from the type plus a temperature sensing voltage — with express thermistor and diode branches. Claim 6 is the method mirror. Dependents 2–5 and 7–8 carry all of claim 1's (or claim 6's) limitations plus additions.

The single dispositive limitation for § 102 purposes is step (iii): deriving the sensor type from a test voltage produced by a test current. No cited reference has it.

3. Reference-by-reference: closest disclosure and § 102 assessment

1. US 3,420,104 A (Bell Telephone). Discloses a current-energized semiconductor junction as a temperature-variable impedance and a bridge measurement. Maps to: the diode/junction temperature-sensing branch of claim 1; generic current-source biasing. Does not disclose any type determination, any test current used as an interrogation signal, any thermistor branch, or any reference-voltage-source-plus-series-resistor architecture. Anticipates: none of claims 1–8. § 103 value: low-to-moderate (junction sensing with external current source).

2. US 3,722,283 A (Kettering). The closest conceptual prior art of the eight on the discrimination problem: it expressly contrasts thermistor I-V (linear, Fig. 8) against diode I-V (nonlinear, Fig. 9) and tabulates both resistance-temperature relationships (Fig. 10), and it is directed at making diode sensors interchangeable in one instrument. But the instrument is a bridge with a manual range switch; there is no test current, no test voltage comparison, and no automatic type determination by a processing circuit. Anticipates: none of claims 1–8. § 103 value: highest of the set — this is the reference an examiner or challenger would combine to argue that distinguishing a thermistor from a diode by electrical response was known.

3. US 6,342,997 B1 (Therm-O-Disc). Discloses a diode temperature sensor with an adjustable constant current source whose current level is set to place the diode in the desired operating window — conceptually adjacent to claim 1's diode branch and to the notion of a settable bias current. It discloses a single current source of adjustable magnitude, not a discrete test current versus a larger operation current, and no type detection. Anticipates: none of claims 1–8 (in particular, it does not anticipate claim 5's "operation current is greater than the test current," because there is no two-current test/operate scheme at all). § 103 value: moderate for claims 3/5.

4. TWI434032 B (Marvell). Bibliographic record only (see § 5). § 102 mapping not asserted.

5. US 7,844,764 B2 (Honeywell). This is the only cited reference that discloses automatic detection of what is plugged into a terminal — but it detects a humidity sensor vs. an adjustment potentiometer for setpoint purposes, and it uses a DIP switch for the module's own type selection. It is not a temperature sensor of either claimed type, has no current source circuit, no test current/test voltage, and no thermistor/diode branch. Anticipates: none of claims 1–8. § 103 value: moderate only as generic evidence that auto-sensing which device is connected to an input terminal was known; it does not teach the mechanism claimed (test current → test voltage → type).

6. TWI424441 B (Nanya). Bibliographic record only (see § 5). § 102 mapping not asserted.

7. US 8,727,616 B2 (Fairchild) — examiner-cited. The closest cited art to claim 3's thermistor architecture: an IC voltage source driving a resistor → thermistor path (with a second resistor to the other thermistor terminal) and a comparison/reference stage giving temperature information; FIGS. 4–5 add diode-based sensing and diode-based reference variants. It does not disclose a reference voltage source switched to an output pin with a series resistor forming a common node with the thermistor while the current source is off, nor any determination of sensor type from a test voltage. Anticipates: none of claims 1–8. § 103 value: high for claim 3 (and claim 2's amplification stage is conventional in this art).

8. US 2014/0219316 A1 (Denso) — examiner-cited. Bibliographic record only (see § 5). § 102 mapping not asserted.

4. Bottom line on § 102

No reference cited on the face of US 10,634,565 anticipates any of claims 1–8 under 35 U.S.C. § 102. Every one of claims 1–8 contains (directly or by dependency) the limitation that the processing circuit determines the type of the temperature sensing load from the test voltage produced by the test current, and not one of the eight references discloses an automatic load-type identification step at all. Because § 102 requires a single reference to disclose every limitation, the inquiry ends there for each reference; the dependents cannot be anticipated independently of claims 1 and 6.

The realistic § 102 exposure, if any, is not to these eight references but to other art — the family-cited documents below (notably CN106482850B, priority 2016-11-25, six days before the '565 priority date) are more temporally dangerous than any of the eight on-face citations.

5. Caveat on the three unverified references (stated explicitly rather than assumed)

Within this session's search budget I verified the full disclosure of US 3,420,104, US 3,722,283, US 6,342,997, US 7,844,764 and US 8,727,616 (text retrieved and reviewed). I was not able to retrieve and verify the specifications of TWI434032 B (Marvell), TWI424441 B (Nanya) and US 2014/0219316 A1 (Denso). I therefore report their bibliographic record from the patent's own citation list but do not assert any § 102 mapping for them. Given the title "Temperature sensing system"/"Temperature detection device" and the assignees, these are plausibly diode- or thermistor-based sensing circuits, but I will not characterize their disclosures beyond the title and dates. If a definitive § 102 assessment is required, pull the three documents (Espacenet/TWIPO for the two TW grants; USPTO Patent Public Search for the Denso publication) and re-run the claim-element mapping — the single question to ask of each is whether it derives the sensor type from an interrogating test current/voltage.

6. Additional prior art of record via the family (the six "Family Cites Families" documents)

These were cited in prosecution of the TW/CN family members (TW I614485, CN 108132108), not necessarily in the US case, but they are the next tier of art to consider:

I have not verified the substance of these six either; flagging them because CN106482850B and CN106370319B fall inside the § 102 window and warrant a first-look before the eight on-face citations.

7. Ranking — most relevant prior art

1. US 3,722,283 A — the only cited art that affirmatively contrasts thermistor vs. diode electrical characteristics and addresses sensor interchangeability.
2. US 8,727,616 B2 — closest to the thermistor/resistor/reference architecture of claim 3 (and it is examiner-cited).
3. US 6,342,997 B1 — closest to the diode-plus-adjustable-current-source concept.
4. US 7,844,764 B2 — closest to the idea of auto-detecting a connected device type (different field).
5. US 3,420,104 A — junction/current-source temperature sensing generally.
6. US 2014/0219316 A1, TWI434032 B, TWI424441 B — plausible but unverified.

Nothing here is a validity opinion or legal advice. All dates are taken literally from the patent's citation record (Google Patents copy of US10634565B2) and from the retrieved full texts; where I could not retrieve full text I have said so rather than infer. Search results were treated as controlling over recollection where they conflicted.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,634,565 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note / correction flag. This analysis uses the prior-art references appearing on the face of the patent (the "Patent Citations (8)" block) plus the third-party family citations, all as reproduced in the authoritative Google Patents text supplied in this matter. One contradiction with a previously generated section should be flagged: the earlier litigation summary lists "PCT/US filing 2017-11-30." The authoritative record shows no PCT — application 15/828,290 is a U.S. non-provisional filed 2017-11-30 claiming TW 105139629 (2016-12-01). The "Family Applications" block lists only US 15/828,290. Treat "PCT/US" as erroneous.

Governing law/date. Priority is 2016-12-01 (TW 105139629), so the AIA §§ 102/103 regime applies. Every one of the eight face-cited references published before 2016-12-01, so all eight are § 102(a)(1) prior art available for § 103 combination. See URLs in the table below.

1. Level of ordinary skill and claim construction

POSITA: a B.S. in electrical engineering (or equivalent) with ~2–5 years' experience in analog/mixed-signal IC design, including temperature-sensor front ends (bandgap/diode sensing, thermistor biasing, ADC signal chains). This is a modest level of skill; the claims recite circuit architecture and function, not algorithm-level mathematics.

Key claim terms (broadest reasonable reading / Phillips-near construction):

Claim 1 is a two-branch apparatus claim: detect type from a probe voltage → then compute environmental temperature using that type. Claim 6 is the step-form counterpart. Nothing in claim 1 requires a changed drive modality; that lives in claim 3 (reference-source/resistor divider for the thermistor mode vs. operation-current for the diode mode).

2. The cited art and what each discloses

Corroborating art found outside the patent's face (use with care): US 7,369,816, Highly accurate temperature sensor employing mixed-signal components — https://patents.justia.com/patent/[7369816](/patent/7369816) — claims "first and second current sources operatively coupled to provide a current through a diode wherein second current source is selectable," and "temperature test logic for selectively coupling the second current source in a first temperature detection mode and for selectively decoupling the second current source in a second temperature detection mode." I verified this only from a claim-text snippet, not the full document; the issue date and full disclosure should be confirmed before citing it in a petition.

3. Element-by-element mapping of claim 1

Conclusion on claim 1: every element is disclosed, and the only genuinely combinational step is the addition of a classification decision before the conversion. That is exactly what Honeywell teaches to do at a generic sensor-input terminal.

4. The combinations and the motivation to combine (KSR)

Ground A (primary): Therm-O-Disc '997 + Fairchild '616 + Honeywell '764

Rationale. All three are in the same field of endeavor (semiconductor/electronic temperature sensing and sensor interface circuits) and are reasonably pertinent to the problem the '565 specification itself identifies — namely that "the temperature sensors must be designed according to the temperature measurement devices having different characteristics, so as to prevent a situation in which a temperature sensing chip erroneously interprets an electrical signal … and an inaccurate temperature measurement result is thus obtained" (Description, "Description of Related Art").

1. Both candidate device types were already individually served by current-driven front ends. Therm-O-Disc discloses the diode half (adjustable current source → junction voltage → temperature). Fairchild discloses the resistance/thermistor half and expressly contemplates substituting "one or more other temperature sensitive impedances" at the same IC terminals (US 8,727,616 col. describing thermistor 207). One of ordinary skill seeking a single sensor AFE for both sensor families has only to place the two known front ends behind a common terminal — a combination of known elements performing their known functions, yielding no more than predictable results (KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416–17, 421 (2007)).
2. The candidate set is finite and small. Two device types (thermistor, temperature-sensing diode) dominate the art; the '565 specification names exactly those two. "When there are a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, a person of ordinary skill has good reason to pursue the known options within his or her technical grasp." KSR, 550 U.S. at 421.
3. The discrimination criterion is an inherent, predictable consequence of device physics. The specification's own numbers — thermistor test voltage ≈ 0.1 V; diode test voltage ≈ 0.5–0.7 V; test current 1 µA–5 µA — follow directly from Ohm's law applied to a ~10 kΩ-class thermistor vs. the ~0.6 V forward drop of a silicon junction. A POSITA would recognize before any experimentation that a 1–5 µA probe current on the same node yields separated, non-overlapping voltage windows for the two device types. Predicting the result is not invention; it is routine circuit analysis. This is the strongest single obviousness point in the record.
4. Honeywell supplies the automation motive. US 7,844,764's stated problem is that a controller "must often produce and stock numerous control module configurations, resulting in increased cost and overhead," and its FIGS. 4A-4B auto-detect which device is wired to a terminal so the processor can select the right algorithm — replacing a manual selector (DIP switch 34). Applied here, this teaches away from the need for a separately configured sensing chip (the "must be designed according to the temperature measurement devices" problem) and toward runtime identification. The motivation is a recognized design need (reduce SKU count, enable drop-in replacement across motherboard/server designs using either NTC thermistors or on-package sensing diodes) and market pressure (a single sensor IC compatible with both). KSR, 550 U.S. at 417, 421.
5. No change in principle of operation. Each front end operates exactly as it did alone; the sensing chip merely selects between them. "The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results." KSR, 550 U.S. at 416.

Ground B (alternative): Denso '316 + Fairchild '616 + Honeywell '764

Denso's temperature-detection device is directed to a processor-driven constant-current front end whose sensing circuit "can be provided by any single element of the diode, the resistor and the voltage source each having a temperature characteristic" (same-title Denso publication, URL above). Combined with Fairchild's multi-device-capable terminals/processor and Honeywell's automatic device identification, the claim 1 combination is likewise reached. The motivation is identical: one ASIC/drive IC serving multiple interchangeable sensing-element types in a power module or board (the Denso context is IGBT-module temperature sensing).

Ground C (method, claim 6): same references applied to the steps

Claim 6's steps (probe with a test current → classify → convert using the type) are the algorithmic counterpart of the same disclosure. Honeywell's detection algorithm plus Fairchild's ADC/processing unit plus Therm-O-Disc's current-driven diode sensing perform the claimed method. A method claim whose steps are the necessary operational sequence of a disclosed apparatus is obvious for the same reasons as the apparatus.

5. Dependent claims 2–5 and 7–8

6. Counterarguments a patent owner will raise, and the responses

1. "No single reference discloses determining the type and then switching drive modality." True as a matter of the four corners of any one reference, but § 103 does not require it. Honeywell expressly teaches automatic detection of a connected device followed by selecting the corresponding algorithm — precisely the claimed sequence, applied to a sensor input terminal. The remaining differences are the identity of the two candidate devices, which the field fixes.
2. "Honeywell is HVAC controls; it detects a humidity sensor vs. a potentiometer, not two temperature sensor types." This goes to analogy, not patentability. Honeywell is reasonably pertinent: it addresses the same problem (which of several devices is wired to this input?), in the same technical context (analog sensor input interface with a processor running a selection algorithm), and its stated rationale (avoid stocking multiple configurations, avoid field misconfiguration) is the same rationale that motivates the '565 apparatus. Even if treated as non-analogous, its teaching may still be used for what it fairly discloses and for motivation under KSR's "design incentives and other market forces" prong.
3. "The examiner allowed after a non-final rejection (mailed 2019-09-16) → notice of allowance (2019-12-23)." Allowance is not a validity determination, and it cuts weakly. The prosecution interval was short and there is no record of an examiner's substantive reason for allowance in the supplied material. Note also that art cited on the face of a patent but not substantively applied by the examiner is generally not a § 325(d) bar to an IPR — which helps a petitioner.
4. Possible secondary-consideration counters. None is apparent from the record: no evidence of unexpected results (the specification offers none — the 0.5–0.7 V/0.1 V separation is inherent), no licensing program, no commercial-success nexus evidence available. If real-world evidence exists (e.g., the accused features driving market share), it must be affirmatively tied to the claimed combination to matter.

7. Confidence, gaps, and what to verify before filing anything

High confidence: the bibliographic/date analysis (all face-cited art predates 2016-12-01); the element mapping to Therm-O-Disc US 6,342,997 and Fairchild US 8,727,616 (I retrieved their own text); the Honeywell auto-detection disclosure (US 7,844,764, FIGS. 4A-4B, verified).

Medium confidence: the characterization of Denso US 2014/0219316 A1, because I retrieved a same-title, same-assignee publication (US 2016/0131538 A1) rather than the face-cited document itself. Pull the actual '316 text (https://patents.google.com/patent/US20140219316A1/en) before relying on it.

Not verified — do not cite yet:

• TWI434032 B (Marvell) and TWI424441 B (Nanya) — face-cited but text not retrieved; both are plausibly important (the Nanya title includes "related temperature sensing method," i.e., the claim 6 counterpart). Retrieve both.
• CN 101660953 A, CN 103454006 B, CN 104754806 A — family-cited; the "temperature detection circuit" references may add explicit multi-sensor-type detection. Retrieve.
• US 7,369,816 — corroborating art I saw only as a claim snippet; confirm the document, issue date, and full disclosure prior to any use.
• US 2014/0023110 A1, Temperature measuring apparatus with sensor assembly of sensing devices connected together (https://trade.patenthub.cn/... ) — surfaced in search and appears to teach determining, from an output signal and before actuating the switching device, the number/configuration of connected sensing devices. If verified, this is a strong additional reference for the "probe before measuring, then interpret accordingly" concept. Verify separately.

Bottom line. On the art of record, all eight issued/faces references are pre-critical-date, and the combination of US 6,342,997 + US 8,727,616 + US 7,844,764 renders claim 1 (and claim 6) obvious: each element is disclosed, the candidate device set is the field's closed set of two, the discriminating voltage separation is a predictable consequence of device physics, and there is an express, articulated motivation (component-count/SKU reduction and elimination of manual sensor-type configuration) to combine them. Dependents 2–5 and 7–8 add only routine engineering or matter squarely shown in Fairchild, Therm-O-Disc, Denso, and US 7,369,816.

This is a technical analysis, not legal advice, and no validity opinion or freedom-to-operate opinion is expressed.