The Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's final written decision that Tesla failed to prove claims 1–10 of Charge Fusion Technologies' U.S. Patent No. 10,998,753 unpatentable. The '753 patent covers systems and methods for intelligently charging electric vehicles by computing a charging schedule and then increasing the battery charge level in accordance with that schedule. Tesla argued that the prior art reference Kato disclosed all claim limitations, including the "Charging Control Limitation" requiring execution of computer instructions that "result in . . . increasing, in accordance with the charging schedule, a level of charge of the battery."
The court's claim construction analysis turned on whether the "result in" language required automated, computer-driven control of the charging process rather than merely a user manually plugging in the vehicle in response to a schedule. Reading the disputed limitation in the context of the entire claim—which required execution of instructions to "result in" other automated operations like computing the schedule and displaying charging status—the court held that all recited steps occur without human intervention when the processor executes the instructions. The specification's disclosure of embodiments where the charging system "intelligently" controls timing by waiting for lower electricity rates in wireless charging scenarios, acting on a predefined charging profile "without requir[ing] further input from the user/driver," reinforced this construction and distinguished the claimed automation from prior art systems requiring manual initiation of charging.