Patent ID: 7161786

Claim:
A data surge protection module comprising: a housing; a printed circuit board within the housing and having: a termination line for terminating a data line of the module, a first signal line; a second signal line; a common return line for said first and second signal lines; a shield line; and a chassis ground line; an avalanche diode having first and second terminals; a first diode bridge having: a first, second, third and fourth diodes; an input terminal connecting the first and second diodes to the common return line for the first and second signal lines; an output terminal connecting the third and fourth diodes to the termination line; a first bridging terminal connecting the first and third diodes to the first terminal of the avalanche diode; and a second bridging terminal connecting the second and fourth diodes to the second terminal of the avalanche diode; a second diode bridge having: a first, second, third and fourth diodes; an input terminal connecting the first and second diodes to the first signal line; an output terminal connecting the third and fourth diode to the second signal line; a first bridging terminal connecting the first and third diodes to the first bridging terminal of said first diode bridge and to the first terminal of the avalanche diode; a second bridging terminal connecting the second and fourth diodes to the second bridging terminal of said first diode bridge and to the second terminal of the avalanche diode; a third diode bridge having: a first, second, third and fourth diodes; an input terminal connecting the first and second diodes to the shield line; an output terminal connecting the third and fourth diode to the chassis ground line; a first bridging terminal connecting the first and third diodes to the first bridging terminal of said second diode bridge and to the first terminal of said avalanche diode: and a second bridging terminal connecting the second and fourth diodes to the second bridging terminal of said second diode bridge and to the second terminal of said avalanche diode.