ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 23 -- United States Patent no. 12,368,312, issued on July 22, was assigned to Monolithic Power Systems Inc. (San Jose, Calif.).

"Battery charge current management system and related integrated circuit" was invented by Christian Sporck (Campbell, Calif.), Rui Wang (Chengdu, China) and Min Xu (Hangzhou, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A battery charge current management system used for charging battery packs. The battery charge current management system has a voltage converting circuit and at least one switch module. The voltage converting circuit can operate at a charge mode or a discharge mode. The voltage converting circuit can serve to provide a master charge curr...