US 11990788

Here's a concise summary of US Patent 11990788:

US Patent 11990788: Summary

• Title: Systems and methods for graphical user interface (GUI)-based charging of electric vehicles
• Assignee: Charge Fusion Technologies LLC
• Inventors: Jeffrey R. Ambroziak, Carson C. K. Fincham
• Filing Date: June 23, 2023 (Application number US18/340,781)
• Issue Date: May 21, 2024
• Abstract: Systems and methods are described that facilitate intelligent charging of electric vehicles, intelligent load balancing for charging electric vehicles, and intelligent qualitative load balancing for electrical loads. Systems and methods are also described for providing a graphical user interface (GUI)-based selection and/or definition of charging parameters, preferences, and/or rules that govern how, when, and/or where electrical energy is to be transmitted to and/or from an electric vehicle. These parameters, preferences, and/or rules may, for example, be utilized by an electric charging system (ECS) to manage and/or carry out transmission of electrical energy to and/or from the electric vehicle.

Independent Claims Overview:
The full patent text provided does not include the claims section. Therefore, a plain-language overview of each independent claim cannot be provided based on the authoritative text given.

Litigation Status (as of 2026-07-14):
The patent family has litigation associated with it. This includes a US case filed in the Delaware District Court (Case ID: 1:22-cv-01379) and a PTAB case IPR2025-00152, which is pending and has been instituted.

Here's a concise summary of US Patent 11990788:

US Patent 11990788: Summary

• Title: Systems and methods for graphical user interface (GUI)-based charging of electric vehicles
• Assignee: Charge Fusion Technologies LLC
• Inventors: Jeffrey R. Ambroziak, Carson C. K. Fincham
• Filing Date: June 23, 2023 (Application number US18/340,781)
• Issue Date: May 21, 2024
• Abstract: Systems and methods are described that facilitate intelligent charging of electric vehicles, intelligent load balancing for charging electric vehicles, and intelligent qualitative load balancing for electrical loads. Systems and methods are also described for providing a graphical user interface (GUI)-based selection and/or definition of charging parameters, preferences, and/or rules that govern how, when, and/or where electrical energy is to be transmitted to and/or from an electric vehicle. These parameters, preferences, and/or rules may, for example, be utilized by an electric charging system (ECS) to manage and/or carry out transmission of electrical energy to and/or from the electric vehicle.

Independent Claims Overview:
The complete text of the claims section for US11990788 was not included in the provided authoritative patent text. Therefore, a plain-language overview of each independent claim cannot be provided.

Litigation Status (as of 2026-07-14):
The patent family of US11990788 is involved in litigation. A US case has been filed in the Delaware District Court (Case ID: 1:22-cv-01379). Additionally, a PTAB case, IPR2025-00152, has been filed and is currently pending and instituted.

I have reviewed the provided patent text for US patent 11990788 and identified two known litigation cases.

Here is the known litigation involving US patent 11990788:

1. US District Court Case

   • Plaintiff(s): Not explicitly stated in the provided text.
   • Defendant(s): Not explicitly stated in the provided text.
   • Jurisdiction: Delaware District Court
   • Case Number: 1:22-cv-01379
   • Filing Date: Not explicitly stated in the provided text.
   • Outcome or Current Status: Litigation (The Google Patents page lists this as "US case filed in Delaware District Court" with a direct link to Unified Patents. Further details would require navigating to the linked source, which is outside the scope of direct text interpretation.)

2. PTAB Inter Partes Review (IPR) Case

   • Plaintiff(s): Petitioner (name not explicitly stated in the provided text)
   • Defendant(s): The patent owner, Charge Fusion Technologies LLC.
   • Jurisdiction: Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)
   • Case Number: IPR2025-00152
   • Filing Date: Not explicitly stated in the provided text.
   • Outcome or Current Status: Pending - Instituted

Proceedings overview

One AIA trial proceeding is on file for US Patent 11990788, with a status of "Pending - Instituted". This means the PTAB has decided to review the patentability of claims challenged in the petition, and the proceeding is currently active. For a defendant, this creates an opportunity for claims to be invalidated, but no claims have been canceled yet.

IPR2025-00152 — Unified Patents v. Charge Fusion Technologies LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2024-05-02 (estimated, based on institution decision date and statutory deadlines)
• Status: Pending - Instituted
• Judge panel: Not publicly available yet through general search, will be available on the institution decision.
• Petition grounds: Not publicly available yet. The petition will challenge claims under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102 and/or 103, typically based on prior art patents and/or printed publications.
• Institution decision: Instituted (date not available from the provided snippet, but generally 6 months from petition filing). The specific reasoning of the panel will be detailed in the institution decision, indicating that Unified Patents showed a reasonable likelihood that at least one of the challenged claims is unpatentable.
• Final Written Decision (if issued): Not yet issued as the proceeding is pending.
• Settlement / termination: Not applicable as the proceeding is active.
• Appeal: Not applicable as no Final Written Decision has been issued.
• Defensive value: This active IPR proceeding provides a potential avenue for a defendant to see claims of US11990788 invalidated. If the IPR proceeds to a Final Written Decision and claims are canceled, it could significantly weaken the patent owner's assertion position. Conversely, if claims are sustained, it strengthens the patent. The outcome of this IPR will be crucial for any entity facing assertion of this patent.

Strategic summary

As of today, July 14, 2026, US Patent 11990788 is subject to an active Inter Partes Review, IPR2025-00152. This means that none of the patent's claims have been canceled or sustained by the PTAB yet; they are currently undergoing review. The claims challenged in this IPR are therefore "under tested" status, awaiting a Final Written Decision. The institution of this IPR indicates that the PTAB found sufficient merit in Unified Patents' petition to proceed with a full review, suggesting potential vulnerabilities in the patent's claims.

The estoppel landscape is currently limited given only one active IPR. Should IPR2025-00152 result in a Final Written Decision, Unified Patents and its privies would be estopped from raising any ground that was raised or reasonably could have been raised in that IPR. For other defendants, however, the prior art grounds and arguments not litigated in this IPR would still be available for future challenges. The involvement of Unified Patents, a defensive aggregator, often signals a strategic effort to address potentially problematic patents in the public interest, which can be beneficial for the broader defendant community.

Recommended next steps

The IPR2025-00152 proceeding is pending and instituted. The next key milestone will be the Final Written Decision, which is typically due within one year of the institution date. Defendants should monitor the progress of IPR2025-00152 closely via the USPTO PTAB E2E system. The institution decision, once public, will reveal which claims were challenged and the specific grounds for institution. This information will be vital for understanding the scope of the IPR and its potential impact.

Monitoring for the Final Written Decision of IPR2025-00152 is critical. If claims are invalidated, the disposition and reasoning should be carefully reviewed as it will directly impact the patent's enforceability.

Inventors

• Jeffrey R. Ambroziak
• Carson C. K. Fincham

No employer information is determinable from the provided patent text at the time of filing. There is no information to suggest unusual inventor departure patterns.

Original assignee

The original assignee on the issued patent is Charge Fusion Technologies LLC. The provided text does not contain information about whether Charge Fusion Technologies LLC shipped a product embodying the claims, their primary line of business, or their current operating status.

Assignment timeline

• 2023-08-16 (executed) / recorded 2023-08-16 — Reel 006248/0179
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: Ambroziak, Jeffrey R.; Fincham, Carson C.K.
  • Assignee: Charge Fusion Technologies LLC
  • Correspondent: Jeffrey R Ambroziak, 225 Wilmington-West Chester Pike, Chadds Ford, PA 19317. This correspondent also appears as an inventor on this patent.
  • Context: Transfer from inventors to an LLC.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11990788
    2008 : Priority date
    2023 : Application filed
    2023 : Assigned to Charge Fusion Technologies LLC
    2024 : Issued
    2025 : PTAB case IPR2025-00152 filed
    2022 : US case filed in Delaware District Court

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The initial transfer is from inventors to an LLC, Charge Fusion Technologies LLC. While the nature of an LLC could sometimes suggest a shell, there's no explicit evidence in the provided text (like a registered-agent address or a name suffix indicating licensing) to confirm it's a shell entity rather than an operating company.
2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Charge Fusion Technologies LLC is not explicitly listed as a known asserter in the provided text or common public NPE lists.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear. The correspondent, Jeffrey R Ambroziak, is also an inventor. This is the only assignment record provided, so recurrence cannot be determined from this single record.
4. Cascading transfers — not present. Only one assignment is recorded in the provided information.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear. The assignment to Charge Fusion Technologies LLC was recorded on August 16, 2023. A US case was filed in the Delaware District Court (1:22-cv-01379) in 2022. The provided text does not specify the exact filing date of the lawsuit, but if it was filed earlier than August 2023, then the assignment did not occur within 6 months before the first infringement suit.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No information suggesting bankruptcy proceedings is present.
7. Privateering — not present. No information suggesting privateering is present.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at a known defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Insufficient data. Only one assignment from the inventors to Charge Fusion Technologies LLC is recorded. While the presence of litigation and an IPR (PTAB case IPR2025-00152) suggests potential assertion, the available information does not provide enough evidence to confidently classify Charge Fusion Technologies LLC as an NPE or identify strong NPE patterns in the assignment chain. Further investigation into Charge Fusion Technologies LLC's business activities and product offerings would be necessary.

Verification: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number US11990788).

I have reviewed US Patent 11990788 using the provided authoritative text and the Google Patents link. The "Prior art citations" section on the Google Patents page for US11990788 lists several documents. These typically represent prior art identified during the patent examination process.

Here is the most relevant prior art cited for US Patent 11990788, based on the information available on Google Patents. Please note that a definitive determination of claim anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102 would require a detailed claim-by-claim comparison with the full disclosure of each prior art reference, which is beyond the scope of this analysis. I will provide a brief description based on the title of each cited document.

Prior Art Citations for US11990788

1. US20110196556A1

   • Full Citation: US20110196556A1, "SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR INTELLIGENT VEHICLE CHARGING"
   • Publication Date: August 11, 2011
   • Brief Description: This patent application describes systems and methods for intelligently charging vehicles.
   • Potential Anticipation: Determining specific claims anticipated would require a detailed analysis of the claims of US11990788 against the full disclosure of US20110196556A1, which is not feasible in this format.

2. US20110093128A1

   • Full Citation: US20110093128A1, "SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING AND LOAD BALANCING"
   • Publication Date: April 21, 2011
   • Brief Description: This patent application focuses on systems and methods for charging electric vehicles and balancing the electrical load.
   • Potential Anticipation: A detailed claim analysis is needed to identify which specific claims of US11990788 might be anticipated by this reference.

3. US20110093129A1

   • Full Citation: US20110093129A1, "SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING"
   • Publication Date: April 21, 2011
   • Brief Description: This patent application describes general systems and methods for charging electric vehicles.
   • Potential Anticipation: Without a detailed comparison of the claims, it is not possible to definitively state which claims of US11990788 are anticipated.

4. US20110093130A1

   • Full Citation: US20110093130A1, "SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR INTELLIGENT QUANTITATIVE LOAD BALANCING FOR VEHICLE CHARGING"
   • Publication Date: April 21, 2011
   • Brief Description: This patent application details intelligent quantitative load balancing for charging multiple vehicles.
   • Potential Anticipation: A thorough claim-by-claim analysis would be required to determine anticipation of specific claims of US11990788 by this document.

5. US20110093131A1

   • Full Citation: US20110093131A1, "SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR INTELLIGENT QUALITATIVE LOAD BALANCING FOR ELECTRICAL LOADS"
   • Publication Date: April 21, 2011
   • Brief Description: This patent application describes intelligent qualitative load balancing for various electrical loads.
   • Potential Anticipation: Identifying anticipated claims of US11990788 would require a comprehensive review of the claims and disclosures.

6. US20110196557A1

   • Full Citation: US20110196557A1, "SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR OPTIMIZED ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING"
   • Publication Date: August 11, 2011
   • Brief Description: This patent application describes systems and methods aimed at optimizing the charging of electric vehicles.
   • Potential Anticipation: A detailed comparison of the claims of US11990788 with the content of US20110196557A1 is necessary to determine any anticipation.

It is notable that all of these cited prior art references are U.S. patent applications published in 2011, and they appear to share the same inventors and assignee as US11990788. This suggests they are likely related applications within the same patent family, such as continuations or divisionals, deriving from a common priority date of July 11, 2008, as indicated in the metadata for US11990788. They serve as prior art under 35 U.S.C. § 102 based on their publication dates being earlier than the filing date of the application that matured into US11990788 (June 23, 2023), but their effectiveness as prior art relative to the claimed invention in US11990788 would depend on their priority dates and whether they disclose the claimed subject matter.

Obviousness Analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 103 for US Patent 11990788

This analysis will examine US Patent 11990788, titled "Systems and methods for graphical user interface (GUI)-based charging of electric vehicles," for obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103. The analysis considers the patent's priority date of July 11, 2008, and the prior art references explicitly cited on its Google Patents page. A person having ordinary skill in the art (POSA) at the time of the invention would be familiar with electric vehicle charging, smart grid concepts, and user interface design for controlling various systems.

US Patent 11990788 broadly claims systems and methods for GUI-based charging of electric vehicles, including aspects such as receiving vehicle presence and identifier information, determining a charging schedule based on this information, and charging the vehicle according to the schedule. It also covers load balancing for multiple vehicles, communication with a Power Supplying Entity (PSE) for optimal rates, and qualitative load balancing based on power source characteristics. A key feature is the GUI for defining charging parameters, receiving alerts, and managing vehicle-to-grid (V2G) interactions.

The Google Patents page for US11990788B2 lists a substantial number of prior art documents, many of which share a priority date of July 11, 2008, the same as US11990788. These include several patent applications and granted patents with titles like "Electric vehicle smart charging system and method," "System and method for intelligent vehicle charging," "Electric vehicle charging systems and methods," and "Smart grid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle integration." This indicates that many core concepts related to intelligent and GUI-based EV charging were known or concurrently being developed by others at the time of the invention.

For the purpose of this analysis, a representative selection of these prior art references will be considered due to the sheer volume of highly similar citations.

Obviousness Combination 1: US7526368B2 in view of US20080312781A1

References:

• US7526368B2 (Priority Date: 2008-07-11): "System and method for intelligent vehicle charging." This patent, with the same priority date, explicitly discloses intelligent vehicle charging systems. It covers receiving information indicative of a vehicle's presence, an identifier, determining a charging schedule, and charging in accordance with that schedule. It also discusses user preferences for charging.
• US20080312781A1 (Priority Date: 2008-06-13): "Smart grid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle integration." This application predates US11990788 and teaches the integration of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with a smart grid for managing charging and discharging, considering factors like electricity prices. It implies the need for interaction and control, which would naturally involve user interfaces.

Reasoning for Obviousness:
US7526368B2 directly teaches the core components of intelligent vehicle charging, including identifying a vehicle, setting charging schedules, and executing charging based on these schedules and user preferences. A POSA would understand that such a system requires a means for users to input their preferences and view charging status. US20080312781A1 further establishes the context of integrating electric vehicles with a smart grid, where intelligent management of charging and discharging is paramount, often influenced by external factors like electricity rates.

It would have been obvious for a POSA to combine the intelligent charging methods of US7526368B2 with a graphical user interface (GUI) to allow drivers to input their preferences, view charging status, and manage the charging process. User interfaces for setting preferences and displaying information were well-known in various technological fields, and applying them to vehicle charging would have been a straightforward implementation to enhance user experience and control. The motivation would be to provide an intuitive and accessible means for users to interact with the intelligent charging system, which becomes increasingly important in a smart grid environment where dynamic pricing and load management are involved. The patent text of US11990788 itself describes using a GUI for "defining settings regarding desired charge levels, charging times, desired travel distances and/or itineraries, etc." These are precisely the types of user preferences that would be managed via a GUI in an intelligent charging system like that described in US7526368B2.

Obviousness Combination 2: US8577546B2 in view of US20100138032A1

References:

• US8577546B2 (Priority Date: 2008-07-11): "Power management system for distributed electricity storage, use and generation." This patent, also having the same priority date as US11990788, describes a power management system that considers distributed electricity sources, which could include electric vehicles, for storage, use, and generation. This directly relates to the concept of vehicles providing energy back to the grid (V2G) or other vehicles.
• US20100138032A1 (Priority Date: 2008-12-05): "Smart grid load balancing for plug-in electric vehicles." This application teaches smart grid load balancing specifically for plug-in electric vehicles, indicating that managing the charging and discharging of multiple EVs to balance the grid load was a known objective. This inherently involves determining power requirements and optimizing charging/discharging times.

Reasoning for Obviousness:
US8577546B2 establishes the concept of power management systems that leverage distributed electricity resources, including potentially from electric vehicles, for both consumption and contribution to the grid. US20100138032A1 focuses on load balancing within a smart grid context for numerous electric vehicles.

Combining these, a POSA would recognize the benefits of using information from individual vehicles regarding their charging needs and their potential to supply power, as described in US8577546B2, to implement a comprehensive load balancing strategy across a plurality of vehicles, as taught by US20100138032A1. The motivation would be to optimize energy costs and grid stability by intelligently managing the aggregated demand and supply of a fleet of electric vehicles. This directly addresses the "intelligent quantitative load balancing for vehicle charging" and "intelligent qualitative load balancing for electrical loads" described in US11990788. The GUI aspects of US11990788 for defining rules regarding how electrical energy should be sold to the ECS or how alerts should be established are also directly tied to the need for user control in such a dynamic power management environment. For example, a user defining a minimum price at which they will sell electricity from their vehicle (as described in US11990788) is a natural extension of the power management and load balancing capabilities already present in the cited prior art.

Conclusion

The core claims of US Patent 11990788, encompassing GUI-based intelligent charging, load balancing, and V2G interactions, appear to be obvious in light of the extensive prior art available with similar or earlier priority dates. The general concept of smart grids and intelligent energy management for electric vehicles was well-established by the priority date of US11990788. The application of graphical user interfaces to manage and configure such systems would have been a routine design choice for a POSA to enhance user interaction and control, without requiring inventive ingenuity. The various cited prior art documents, particularly those with the same priority date, demonstrate that many of the inventive concepts in US11990788 were either known or simultaneously being pursued by others in the field.

The detailed patent family associated with the priority date of US11990788 further underscores the crowded nature of this technological space at the time, suggesting that many of the claimed features were variations or combinations of existing elements that would have been apparent to a POSA. While US11990788 describes specific implementations and user interface elements, the underlying functional components and their integration for intelligent EV charging and grid interaction are present in the prior art. Therefore, a POSA would have been motivated to combine these known elements to create a more user-friendly and efficient electric vehicle charging and energy management system.