Tesla, Inc. v. Charge Fusion Technologies, LLC

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
TESLA, INC.,
Appellant
v.
CHARGE FUSION TECHNOLOGIES, LLC,
Appellee
______________________
2024-1584
______________________
Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2022-
01217.
______________________
Decided: February 25, 2026
______________________
PAUL ISAAC M ARGULIES , Tesla, Inc., Washington, DC,
argued for appellant. Also represented by K RISTA M ARIE
CARTER, Palo Alto, CA; D AVID A. CAINE, Arnold & Porter
Kaye Scholer LLP, Palo Alto, CA.
FREDERICK A. T ECCE , Altima Advisors/Attorneys, LLC,
Philadelphia, PA, argued for appellee. Also represented by
BRADLEY D. LIDDLE, M ICHAEL CLAYTON POMEROY, Cozen
O'Connor, Dallas, TX.
______________________
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TESLA, INC. v. CHARGE FUSION TECHNOLOGIES , LLC 2
Before D YK , REYNA, and CHEN , Circuit Judges.
Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge CHEN .
Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge D YK .
CHEN , Circuit Judge.
Tesla, Inc. (Tesla) appeals a final written decision from
the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) finding that
Tesla did not prove that claims 1–10 (Challenged Claims)
of U.S. Patent No. 10,998,753 (’753 patent) are unpatenta-
ble. Because we agree with the Board that the Charging
Control Limitation is performed by a processor executing
instructions and not a person manually initiating the
charging, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
Charge Fusion Technologies, LLC owns the ’753 pa-
tent, titled “Systems and Methods for Charging Electric
Vehicles.” The patent seeks to “intelligently” control the
timing of the charging process for an electric vehicle, creat-
ing a charging schedule for the vehicle, and then charging
the vehicle in accordance with that generated schedule.
See ’753 patent col. 2 ll. 5–15. To accomplish this, the pa-
tent explains that its computerized charging system can
“determine the most cost-effective schedule for charging
the vehicle.” Id. at col. 10 ll. 45–49.
Claim 1 is representative of the Challenged Claims.
The claimed charging system comprises at least one pro-
cessing device and a memory storing instructions that,
upon execution, cause a series of operations to occur includ-
ing charging an electric vehicle’s battery. Claim 1 reads as
follows:
1. An electrical charging system, comprising:
one or more processing devices; and
a non-transitory memory device in communication
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TESLA, INC. v. CHARGE FUSION TECHNOLOGIES , LLC 3
with the one or more processing devices, the
non-transitory memory storing instructions
that when executed by the one or more pro-
cessing devices, result in:
receiving information indicative of a
starting location of an electric vehi-
cle;
receiving information indicative of a
desired destination of the electric
vehicle;
receiving information indicative of a
charging location of each of a plu-
rality of electric charge providers;
computing, based at least in part on the
starting location, the desired desti-
nation, and the charging locations
of one or more of the plurality of
electric charge providers, a charg-
ing schedule for the electric vehicle
the charging schedule comprising a
scheduled start time and an indica-
tion of a scheduled stop time for
charging the electric vehicle at
each of one or more of the plurality
of charging locations and a se-
quence defining an order in which
the electric vehicle is to be charged
at each of the one or more of the
plurality of charging locations,
wherein a first charging location of
the sequence is computed based, at
least in part, on an ability of the
electric vehicle to travel to the first
charging location utilizing a charge
amount stored in a battery of the
electric vehicle;
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TESLA, INC. v. CHARGE FUSION TECHNOLOGIES , LLC 4
displaying a charging status of the electric
vehicle via a graphical user inter-
face forming a part of the electric
vehicle; and
increasing, in accordance with the charging
schedule, a level of charge of the
battery of the electric vehicle;
wherein the desired destination
information is defined by a user of
the electric vehicle via the graph-
ical user interface adapted to dis-
play a vehicle charge indicator
element comprising a first portion
indicative of an amount of charge
residing in a battery of the electric
vehicle and a second portion indic-
ative of an uncharged capacity of
the battery of the electric vehicle
and wherein the vehicle charge in-
dicator element further comprises
a slider by which an amount of
charge may be specified.
Id. at claim 1 (emphases added).
The portions relevant to this appeal are “instructions
that when executed by the one or more processing devices,
result in . . . computing . . . a charging schedule for the
electric vehicle . . . comprising a scheduled start time and
an indication of a scheduled stop time. . . ” (Charging
Schedule Limitation) and “instructions that when exe-
cuted by the one or more processing devices, result
in . . . increasing, in accordance with the charging sched-
ule, a level of charge of the battery of the electric vehicle”
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TESLA, INC. v. CHARGE FUSION TECHNOLOGIES , LLC 5
(Charging Control Limitation).1 For the Charging Sched-
ule Limitation, execution of the stored instructions by the
processing device results in computing a charging schedule
for an electric vehicle. Id. at col. 29 ll. 18–21, 28–34. For
the Charging Control Limitation, execution of the instruc-
tions by the processing device results in increasing the ve-
hicle’s battery charge level in accordance with the charging
schedule. Id. at col. 29 ll. 18–21, 46–47. As with these lim-
itations, the claimed instructions cause additional actions
to occur, such as, for example, displaying the battery’s
charging status on a user interface within the vehicle. Id.
at col. 29 ll. 43–45.
On July 22, 2022, Tesla filed a petition requesting inter
partes review of the Challenged Claims of the ’753 patent.
Tesla contended that U.S. Patent Application Publication
No. 2008/0243331 (Kato), the 2008 Tesla Roadster Touch
Screen Users Manual, and U.S. Patent No. 7,671,567 ren-
der the Challenged Claims unpatentable under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103. See J.A. 53–73. The Board instituted the petition,
but ultimately found that Tesla did not show by a prepon-
derance of the evidence that any of the Challenged Claims
were unpatentable. J.A. 6. In so finding, the Board deter-
mined that Kato2 does not teach the execution of computer
instructions that “result in” either (1) “a charging schedule
1 The Board and the parties referred to the disputed
limitations as the Charging Schedule Limitation and
Charging Control Limitation. For clarity, we use these des-
ignations to refer to the disputed limitations. Although
“control” does not appear in the increasing-the-battery-
charge limitation, neither the parties nor the Board used
that term to add any extra requirements to the limitation.
2 The Board noted that Tesla relied only on the ex-
press teachings of Kato to show that the Charging Sched-
ule Limitation and Charging Control Limitation are taught
by the prior art and therefore limited its analysis to that
basis. See J.A. 19–21.
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TESLA, INC. v. CHARGE FUSION TECHNOLOGIES , LLC 6
for the electric vehicle . . . comprising a scheduled start
time and an indication of a scheduled stop time for charg-
ing the electric vehicle” or (2) “increasing, in accordance
with the charging schedule, a level of charge of the battery
of the electric vehicle.” ’753 patent col. 29 ll. 18–21, 28–34,
46–47; see J.A. 18–19, 21.
D ISCUSSION
On appeal, Tesla asserts that the Board misconstrued
both the Charging Schedule Limitation and the Charging
Control Limitation, and consequently erred in finding that
Kato does not teach both limitations. We disagree that
Kato teaches the Charging Control Limitation, and there-
fore affirm the Board’s finding that the ’753 patent is not
unpatentable on that ground alone.
I.
Kato is directed to a system that determines charging
locations for an electric vehicle along a planned route. See
J.A. 502 at Abstract; id. at 511–12 ¶¶ 49–60. The naviga-
tion system takes as input an “activity schedule indicating
a travel plan,” which may include “starting points, destina-
tions, . . . and scheduled arrival times at the destinations.”
Id. at 509 ¶ 18; id. at 511 ¶¶ 46–47. The navigation appa-
ratus uses this input to plan charging locations along the
user’s route and set the desired target battery charge level
for each location. Id. at 512 ¶ 54.
Relevant to our analysis, Kato discloses a CPU that ex-
ecutes “energy control determination processing” to create
a “charging schedule.” Id. ¶ 55. The charging schedule is
calculated such that “the target battery remaining
amounts [] at each of [the charging] points are calculated
in such a way that the battery remaining amount [] be-
comes 0% at the arrival to the next planned charging
point.” Id. Tesla argues that Kato discloses the Charging
Control Limitation because the battery charge level in-
creases in accordance with Kato’s generated charging
schedule when a user follows the schedule by manually
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TESLA, INC. v. CHARGE FUSION TECHNOLOGIES , LLC 7
plugging in their vehicle at each charging location. See J.A.
20–21; J.A. 65 (citing J.A. 511–12 ¶ 50).
II.
The Board determined that Kato does not teach the
Charging Control Limitation because the plain and ordi-
nary meaning of this limitation excludes “the user manu-
ally starting and stopping the charging.” J.A. 9. Rather,
the limitation requires the claimed electric charging sys-
tem to execute computer instructions that automatically
manage the charging of the electric vehicle. Id. We agree.
The claim language requires “one or more processing
devices” to “execute” “instructions” that “result in” the in-
crease of, “a level of charge of the battery of the electric ve-
hicle.” ’753 patent col. 29 ll. 20–21, 46–47. This means that
the claimed system is directed to an automated process in
which a processor executes computer instructions that
cause an increase in the battery charge level. In other
words, the time when the battery charging begins is com-
puter-driven and not triggered simply when a user manu-
ally plugs the car into a charging station. The other
limitations of claim 1, which recite other computer-driven
operations, support this understanding. See Pause Tech.,
LLC v. TiVo, Inc., 419 F.3d 1326, 1331 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (ci-
tations omitted) (“Proper claim construction . . . demands
interpretation of the entire claim in context, not a single
element in isolation.”).
The Charging Schedule Limitation, for example, re-
quires the claimed charging system to execute stored in-
structions that “result in” computing a charging schedule.
’753 patent col. 29 ll. 28–42. Similarly, the stored instruc-
tions, when executed, also “result in” “displaying a charg-
ing status of the electric vehicle;” that displaying operation
is an automated one without any user intervention. Id. at
col. 29 ll. 43–45. Moreover, the claim recites that the charg-
ing system “receiv[es]” information regarding the starting
location, desired destination, and charging locations, but
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TESLA, INC. v. CHARGE FUSION TECHNOLOGIES , LLC 8
those actions do not occur until, again, the stored instruc-
tions are executed. See id. at col. 29 ll. 22–27. The overall
picture of the claim makes clear, then, that all the recited
operation steps—whether it is generating a charging
schedule, displaying a battery charge level, or increasing
the battery charge level—likewise occur without any hu-
man intervention when the claimed processing device exe-
cutes the claimed instructions. In all these limitations,
execution of the computer instructions directly causes, or
“result[s] in,” the outcomes disclosed. Id. at col. 29 l. 21.
Nothing in the claim distinguishes the Charging Control
Limitation from the other limitations. There is therefore
no basis to ignore the context of the claim and construe the
Charging Control Limitation differently.
Moreover, the specification is entirely consistent with
this straightforward reading of the claim. It discloses em-
bodiments where the charging system itself “intelligently”
charges vehicles by conducting the charging process in ac-
cordance with a charging schedule. Id. at col. 2 ll. 5–15.
The specification also teaches embodiments where the
charging system interacts with a wireless charging location
to control when to charge the vehicle. See id. at col. 18. l.
26 – col. 20 l. 42. One embodiment, for example, describes
a vehicle “pulling up to a space enabled/operable to provide
electricity in a wireless fashion.” Id. at col. 19 ll. 9–10. In
this embodiment, while a vehicle can be charged immedi-
ately when it “is positioned within a distance suitable for
the provision of wireless electrical power,” id. at col. 18 ll.
56–57, the charging system controls the charging process
to “wait[] for [a specific duration] before charging” to take
advantage of a lower price per kilowatt-hour, id. at col. 19
l. 65 – col. 20 l. 3. Here, there is a “predefine[d] [] charging
profile that is read and acted upon [by] the [charging sys-
tem] without requir[ing] further input from the
user/driver.” Id. at col. 20 ll. 37–39. Such intelligent charg-
ing management goes beyond mere manual plug-in and in-
stead requires the system to execute instructions that
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TESLA, INC. v. CHARGE FUSION TECHNOLOGIES , LLC 9
control the charging process, consistent with the claim lan-
guage.
Tesla’s arguments to the contrary are unpersuasive. It
relies on CollegeNet, Inc. v. ApplyYourself, Inc., 418 F.3d
1225 (Fed. Cir. 2005) to argue that the ’753 patent “com-
prising” claims are broad enough to include a user initiat-
ing charging or increasing the charge. Appellant Br. 36–
38; Appellant Reply 12. This misses the point. The Board’s
plain and ordinary reading of the “comprising” claims did
not exclude a user from manually starting and stopping the
charging. Instead, the Board correctly held that Kato did
not disclose the Charging Control Limitation because it is
not enough to satisfy that limitation for Kato to show that
“the user [can] manually initiat[e] the charging.” J.A. 20.
In other words, while a user can manually plug in their ve-
hicle, this is not enough to increase the battery level upon
execution of computer instructions as required by the
claim.3 The claim requires the computer instructions to
trigger the charging process, in accordance with the charg-
ing schedule.
CONCLUSION
We agree with the Board that Tesla did not provide suf-
ficient evidence to show that Kato teaches the Charging
Control Limitation of the ’753 patent. We have considered
Tesla’s remaining arguments and find them unpersuasive.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm.
AFFIRMED
3 For the reasons explained above, see supra, Discus-
sion Section II, we disagree with the dissent and Tesla’s
interpretation of the Charging Control Limitation. And
Tesla did not argue below that Kato teaches that limitation
under its proper reading.
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NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
TESLA, INC.,
Appellant
v.
CHARGE FUSION TECHNOLOGIES, LLC,
Appellee
______________________
2024-1584
______________________
Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2022-
01217.
______________________
D YK , Circuit Judge, dissenting.
Contrary to the majority, I think that U.S. Patent Ap-
plication Publication No. 2008/0243331 (“Kato”) discloses
the Charging Control limitation under the correct con-
struction of claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 10,998,753 (“’753
patent”).
The ’753 patent is directed to “systems and methods
for charging electric vehicles.” J.A. 109. Representative
claim 1 describes an electrical charging system compris-
ing “one or more processing devices” that execute instruc-
tions that “result in:” “computing . . . a charging
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TESLA, INC. v. CHARGE FUSION TECHNOLOGIES , LLC 2
schedule . . . comprising a scheduled start time and an
indication of a scheduled stop time” (the Charging Sched-
ule limitation) and “increasing, in accordance with the
charging schedule, a level of charge of the battery of the
electric vehicle” (the Charging Control limitation).
’753 patent, claim 1.
With respect to the Charging Schedule limitation, the
majority does not conclude that Kato fails to disclose this
limitation. Kato calculates a “charging schedule” based in
part on “a time spent on charging at each planned charg-
ing point between the arrival at the point and the depar-
ture from the point.” J.A. 512 ¶ 55. Neither respondents,
nor the Board, identifies a compelling reason why a
scheduled arrival at a charging station does not constitute
“a scheduled start time.” ’753 patent, claim 1.
However, the Board found, and the majority agrees,
that the Charging Control limitation was not disclosed by
Kato. The Charging Control limitation requires “instruc-
tions that when executed by the one or more processing
devices, result in . . . increasing, in accordance with the
charging schedule, a level of charge of the battery of the
electric vehicle.” ’753 patent, claim 1. The Board found
that Kato did not disclose this limitation because “it is the
instructions executed by the processor that control charg-
ing, not simply the user manually initiating charging.”
J.A. 20 (emphasis added). The majority correctly points
out that claim 1 requires “computer-driven operations,”
not just manual determinations. Majority Op. 7.
If Kato only disclosed a user manually charging a ve-
hicle in accordance with the charging schedule, I would
agree that Kato does not disclose the Charging Control
limitation. But that is not all Kato discloses. Nor was
that the theory of the petition, which argued that Kato
discloses this limitation because “Kato’s charging sched-
ule setting process is predicated on increasing . . . a level
of charge of the battery of the electric vehicle in order to
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TESLA, INC. v. CHARGE FUSION TECHNOLOGIES , LLC 3
charge the battery sufficiently at each charging location to
get to the subsequent location.” J.A. 65. Claim 1 requires
that the processor executes instructions that “result in”
an increase in charge. ’753 patent, claim 1. Kato disclos-
es a processor that, when the user manually plugs in the
vehicle, calculates the amount of time required to charge
the vehicle to power it to the next scheduled charge point,
permits increasing the level of charge until sufficient
charge has been achieved, and notifies the user when
such charging is completed. See J.A. 512 ¶ 55, 515 ¶ 91.
While the specification contemplates wireless embodi-
ments, it also contemplates physical coupling, stating:
“some embodiments herein may be practiced utilizing
plug in and/or physical coupling to provide energy trans-
mission.” ’753 patent, col. 18, ll. 49–51.1 Accordingly, the
1 The majority appears to agree that claim 1 does
not preclude manual plug in:
The Board’s plain and ordinary reading of the
“comprising” claims did not exclude a user from
manually starting and stopping the charging. In-
stead, the Board correctly held that Kato did not
disclose the Charging Control Limitation because
it is not enough to satisfy that limitation for Kato
to show that “the user [can] manually initiat[e]
the charging.” J.A. 20. In other words, while a
user can manually plug in their vehicle, this is not
enough to increase the battery level upon execu-
tion of computer instructions as required by the
claim. The claim requires the computer instruc-
tions to trigger the charging process, in accord-
ance with the charging schedule.
Majority Op. 9. The majority’s statement that the com-
puter must “trigger the charging process” is incorrect. Id.
Claim 1 only requires that “instructions . . . when execut-
ed by the one or more processing devices, result in: . . .
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TESLA, INC. v. CHARGE FUSION TECHNOLOGIES , LLC 4
processor executes instructions (determining the amount
of charge required and permitting charging to continue up
to that point) that result in the required increase in
charge.
Nor do the claims require intelligent charging, as the
majority appears to suggest. Majority Op. 8. According to
the specification, an intelligent charging system is one
that starts and stops charging automatically, without
assistance from the user, to take account of considerations
like energy cost.
The majority refers to an embodiment where a vehicle
or server sends a sensor “information regarding parame-
ters defining how the automobile is to be charged” such as
“a maximum rate willing to be paid for electricity.”
’753 patent, col. 19 ll. 25–30. In such cases, the system
may predict how energy prices will change throughout the
day and “wait[] . . . before charging the automobile.” Id.
at col. 19 l. 65–col. 20 l. 3. It is true that these embodi-
ments comport with how the majority reads the Charging
Control limitation. But they do not comport with the
plain language of the claim. Despite being used exten-
sively in the specification, the claim does not recite “intel-
ligent” charging. “[W]e have repeatedly warned against
confining the claims to . . . embodiments.” Phillips
v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en
banc); SciMed Life Sys., Inc. v. Advanced Cardiovascular
Sys., Inc., 242 F.3d 1337, 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (stating
that reading an embodiment into the claims is one of the
“cardinal sins” of patent law).
In my view, the plain language of the Charging Con-
trol limitation does not require intelligent charging, and
increasing, in accordance with the charging schedule, a
level of charge of the battery of the electric vehicle.”
’753 patent, claim 1.
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TESLA, INC. v. CHARGE FUSION TECHNOLOGIES , LLC 5
Kato clearly discloses the computer’s executing instruc-
tions that result in an increase in charge by determining
the amount of charge that will be sufficient to enable the
user to travel to the next destination. I respectfully
dissent.
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