A split panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed a decision upholding the validity of Charge Fusion Technologies' electric vehicle charging patent, rejecting Tesla's appeal. The ruling supports the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's finding that Tesla failed to prove the claims unpatentable. The patent is also at issue in a related infringement lawsuit against Tesla.
On February 25, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a split decision affirming the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's (PTAB) ruling in favor of Charge Fusion Technologies, LLC. The PTAB had determined in 2024 that Tesla Inc. failed to demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that claims in Charge Fusion's U.S. Patent No. 10,998,753, titled “Systems and Methods for Charging Electric Vehicles,” were unpatentable. Tesla had initiated an inter partes review (IPR) in 2022 to challenge the patent, which is one of three involved in a 2021 infringement suit filed by Charge Fusion against the automaker in the Eastern District of Texas, according to Bloomberg Law reporting. The CAFC opinion, authored by Judge Chen and joined by Judge Reyna, focused on Tesla's arguments that the PTAB misconstrued two claim limitations: the Charging Schedule Limitation and the Charging Control Limitation. Tesla contended that prior art reference “Kato”—U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0243331, directed to determining charging locations along a planned route—taught these limitations. Specifically, Tesla argued that Kato disclosed the Charging Control Limitation because battery charge levels increase when a user manually plugs in at scheduled locations. However, the PTAB interpreted the Charging Control Limitation's plain and ordinary meaning as excluding manual starting and stopping of charging, requiring automatic operation instead. The CAFC agreed, affirming the decision on this ground alone. The majority noted that the patent specification describes embodiments where the charging system “intelligently” charges vehicles electronically, interacting with wireless charging locations, which aligns with automatic control. Judge Dyk dissented, arguing that Kato discloses the limitation under the correct construction and that the claim language does not require intelligent charging. The patent's validity remains intact, with the infringement case ongoing.
