IP Law Daily, PATENT—Fed. Cir.: Non-obviousness affirmed in electric car charging dispute, (Feb 26, 2026)

By Kevin M. Finson, J.D.

A prior art reference did not render a patented intelligent car charging system obvious because the reference did not teach the claim limitation requiring that charging be controlled by the execution of computer instructions.

Tesla failed to show any error in a PTAB determination that an electric car charging system was not shown to be unpatentable as obvious, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held. The prior art reference upon which Tesla had relied did not teach the sort of automated system covered by the claims at issue (Tesla, Inc. v. Charge Fusion Technologies, LLC, No. 24-1584 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 25, 2026)).

Charge Fusion Technologies, LLC (Charge Fusion) was the owner of U.S. Patent No. 10,998,753 (the ’753 patent), which was entitled “Systems and Methods for Charging Electric Vehicles” and claimed the “intelligent” charging of electric vehicles by creating a charging schedule using a computerized system to find the most cost-effective schedule for charging based on a starting location, destination, and the locations of electric charge providers. Tesla, Inc. (Tesla) petitioned for inter partes review of claims 1-10 of the ’753 patent on the ground of obviousness over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0243331 (Kato) as well as two other references which were not relevant on appeal. Tesla relied on the express teachings of Kato to show that the Charging Schedule and Charging Control limitations of the ’753 patent were taught in the prior art. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted review and found that Tesla failed to show Kato taught either limitation. Tesla appealed.

Charging control limitation. Kato disclosed a system that executes “energy control determination processing” to create a charging schedule. Tesla argues that this met the requirements of the Charging Control Limitation of the ’753 patent because the battery charge level increased according to the schedule when the user manually plugs the vehicle in at each charging station. The court disagreed, finding that the plain language of the patent’s specification excluded manual starting and stopping of the charging, instead requiring an automatic system. While a user plugging in the vehicle was not included, the claim language required execution of computer instructions to actually trigger the charging process and this element was missing from Kato.

The court found that Tesla did not provide sufficient evidence to show that the Kato reference taught the Charging Control Limitation and therefore affirmed the decision of the board without reaching the charging schedule limitation.

Dissent. Judge Dyk, dissenting, would have found that the Kato reference disclosed the Charging Control Limitation and that the plain language of the specification did not require automated, intelligent charging, arguing that the majority had improperly imported elements of embodiments into the claims themselves in drawing the distinction between Kato’s creation of a charging schedule and the ’753 patent’s charging control system.

The Case is No. 24-1584.

Judge: Chen, R.

Attorneys: David A. Caine (Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP) for Tesla, Inc. Frederick A. Tecce (Altima Advisors/Attorneys, LLC) for Charge Fusion Technologies, LLC.

Companies: Tesla, Inc.; Charge Fusion Technologies, LLC

Cases: Patent FedCirNews USPTO