ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,348,240, issued on July 1, was assigned to SOCIONEXT INC. (Kanagawa, Japan).

"Comparator circuit and A/D converter" was invented by Itsuki Yoshida (Yokohama, Japan) and Takashi Morie (Yokohama, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A comparator circuit outputs first and second digital signals corresponding to differential signals to a flip-flop having a predetermined forbidden input combination. A converter circuit performs differential amplification for the differential signals and converts the resultant signals to first and second signals that are complementary digital signals. A logic circuit performs predetermined logical operation, an...