Tesla Loses Appeals Challenge of EV Charging Patent’s Validity

A split Federal Circuit panel said a tribunal was justified in rejecting Tesla Inc.'s challenge to the validity of an electric vehicle charging system patent that’s also part of a pending infringement suit against the carmaker.

The appeals court sided Wednesday with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, which in 2024 turned down Tesla’s argument that a technological feature in Charge Fusion Technologies LLC’s US Patent No. 10,998,753 was previously described in a 2008 patent application named for its Japanese inventor Kazuya Kato.

The patent was one of three Charge Fusion said Tesla copied in a 2021 patent suit, ...