Other Barks & Bites for Friday, June 13: Acting Director Stewart Issues Decisions on Discretionary Denial; CAFC Affirms Denial of Subject Matter Jurisdiction in Mitek II; and House SST Committee Advances Emerging Tech Bills

Luna Bella Quinn enjoying a ride in the truck. June 8, 2025.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Senate Judiciary Committee advances Trump nominee John Squires to serve as USPTO Director; the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee advances four bipartisan bills on emerging tech and emergency response; the Federal Circuit finds no abuse of discretion in the district court’s decision to decline exercise subject matter jurisdiction in Mitek’s second appeal of its non-infringement action; Meta will invest $14.3 billion into improving the quality of AI training data through Scale AI; the Ninth Circuit dismisses trademark claims filed by a prominent Redditor over the r/WallStreetBets subreddit; USPTO Acting Director Stewart issues a series of Director decisions on discretionary denials of IPR institutions; and the USPTO announces new fines against companies that fraudulently claim or assert small or micro entity status while appearing before the agency.

Bites 

CAFC Finds No Abuse in Declining Jurisdiction Over Non-Infringement DJ Action in Mitek II – On Friday, June 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential ruling in Mitek Systems, Inc. v. United Services Automobile Association affirming the Eastern District of Texas’ decision to decline exercising subject matter jurisdiction over a declaratory judgment action filed by digital ID verification company Mitek against USAA patents claiming mobile check deposit technologies. The Federal Circuit found that USAA’s infringement allegations against Mitek customers Wells Fargo and PNC Bank did not give rise to any direct, induced or contributory liability, following the appellate court’s prior reasoning from Microsoft Corp. v. DataTern (2014), and concluded that even if the district court erred in finding no subject matter jurisdiction over Mitek’s declaratory judgment action, it did not abuse its discretion in declining to exercise jurisdiction.

Director Stewart Declines Discretionary Denial to 7 IPRs Under Interim PTAB Workload Process – On Thursday, June 12, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart issued 11 Director discretionary decisions under the agency’s interim process for managing workloads at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), declining to issue discretionary denials under 35 U.S.C. § 325(d) in seven inter partes review (IPR) proceedings but denying institution and terminating four other IPR proceedings. Factors leading to discretionary denials include meaningful investments in district court proceedings, time-to-trial statistics showing earlier district court trial dates than PTAB final written decisions, and in one case “unfair dealings” where former employees who left to start their own company were denied the ability to challenge the patent that they were awarded (Tessell v. Nutianix). Meanwhile, while IPR proceedings that remained instituted challenged patents early in their lifetime, involved prior art material to patentability that patent examiners had erred in overlooking, and in one case where the patent expired 4 years earlier, which significantly undercut the patent owner’s “settled expectations” argument (Globus Medical v. Spinelogik).  Each decision by Acting Director Stewart was made based on a totality of the circumstances.

Senate Judiciary Committee Advances Squires Nomination for USPTO Director – On Thursday, June 12, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary approved the nomination of John Squires to serve as the next Director of the USPTO by a 20-2 voice vote, with the only two nays being registered by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Cory Booker (D-NJ). Squires’ nomination, which was presented to the Senate by the Trump Administration much earlier than most new incoming Presidential administrations, signals that the USPTO will be relatively pro-patent during the second Trump Administration according to insiders who have spoken with IPWatchdog Founder and CEO Gene Quinn.

House SST Committee Advances Bills on Emerging Science and Innovative Emergency Response – On Wednesday, June 11, the full U.S. Senate Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (SST) passed four bipartisan bills out of committee during a markup session. Those bills are directed at leveraging the United States’ scientific enterprise to address emergency response and other national challenges, and they include H.R. 390, the Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) Act, which would direct NASA to develop advanced aircraft and real-time data sharing programs for improved wildfire response; H.R. 3259, the Post Quantum Cybersecurity Standards Act, which would direct NIST to develop and promulgate post-quantum cryptography standards; H.R. 3679, the Small Business Artificial Intelligence Advancement Act, which would direct NIST to develop resources helping small businesses better utilize AI resources; and H.R. 3705, the Fog Observations and Geographic Forecasting Act, which would direct NOAA to conduct a project involving remote sensing technologies to improve coastal marine fog forecasting.

Eleventh Circuit Finds Personal Jurisdiction over British Virgin Islands IP Holding Company – On Tuesday, June 10, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a decision in Jekyll Island-State Park Authority v. Polygroup Macau Ltd. reversing the Southern District of Georgia’s dismissal of trademark infringement and cancellation claims against Polygroup because the district court found that it could not exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendant, an IP holding company headquartered in the British Virgin Islands who did not direct the sale of its products into the U.S. but only permitted other entities to do so. The Eleventh Circuit found that by applying for trademark rights, Polygroup made use of U.S. law such that it voluntarily assumed interstate obligations that it cannot now avoid through a corporate structure that transfers title of disputed products to global retailers.

Stewart Declines to Retroactively Apply New Discretionary Denial Process for U.S. Patent Owner – On Tuesday, June 10, Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart denied Director review of a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision in which the PTAB instituted a challenge brought by a China-based infringer (Innoscience) against a U.S.-based patent owner (Efficient Power Conversion), after completion of a week-long trial at the International Trade Commission (ITC) and during the process of post-trial briefing. Stewart criticized the decision to institute but declined to terminate the proceeding. She wrote: “Granting institution of an [IPR] when there is parallel litigation before the [ITC] involving the same parties and prior art, and where the litigation would—and does—result in a final judgment before the Board’s final written decision is not an efficient use of the Office’s resources. Under the guidance existing at the time of the decision instituting the IPR, however, the Board did not discretionarily deny petitions based on proceedings before the ITC. Having already conducted a trial and issued a Final Written Decision, the Office will not gain any efficiencies by terminating this proceeding.”

Barks 

EU Council Prioritizes IP Crime Under New 2026-29 EMPACT Cycle – On Friday, June 13, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) announced that the EU Council had prioritized intellectual property crime as a significant threat to the EU in its list of priorities for the upcoming 2026-29 cycle under the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats (EMPACT) cross-border law enforcement instrument involving officials from member states as well as Europol and other EU agencies.

Ninth Circuit Reverses Dismissal of Copyright Claims in Amiga PC Dispute – On Thursday, June 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a memorandum in Cloanto Corp. v. Hyperion Entertainment C.V.B.A. reversing-in-part the Western District of Washington’s dismissal of a lawsuit by Italian software developer Cloanto, a distributor of the AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition emulation of personal computer (PC) source code originally developed by Commodore, finding that a non-aggression clause in a prior settlement agreement with Hyperion did not eliminate its standing under the Copyright Act as the undisputed owner of the source code at issue. 

USPTO to Begin Issuing Fines for False Small or Micro Entity Certifications – On Thursday, June 12, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced that it would begin assessing fines to parties falsely asserting or certifying that they are small or micro entities of at least three times the amount the company failed to appropriately pay unless the company can show that the assertion was made in good faith.

Ninth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Redditor’s Trademark Claims Over r/WallStreetBets – On Wednesday, June 11, the Ninth Circuit issued an unpublished memo in Rogozinski v. Reddit, Inc. affirming the Northern District of California’s dismissal of Rogozinski’s trademark infringement claims against social media platform Reddit because he failed to adequately plead ownership of the “WALLSTREETBETS” mark, “even if Rogozinski played a prominent role” among users contributing to discussion on the r/WallStreetBets subreddit.

EPO Launches Deep Tech Finder App to Connect Innovation With Startup Investment – On Wednesday, June 11, the European Patent Office (EPO) announced that it had recently released a mobile app for Android and iOS platforms called Deep Tech Finder, which aims to leverage patent and financial data to connect startups, research universities and investors to improve the commercialization of new innovation across Europe.

USPTO Discontinues the Accelerated Examination Program for Utility Patent Applications – On Tuesday, June 10, the USPTO issued a final rule in the Federal Register that discontinued the agency’s Accelerated Examination program for utility patent applications, in operation since 2006, due in part to the popularity of the Track One prioritized examination program under the America Invents Act (AIA). The agency’s final rule also clarifies the grounds for granting a petition to make special and when a fee is required for such a petition.

This Week on Wall Street

Meta Poaches Scale AI CEO in $14.3B Bet to Improve AI Training – On Thursday, June 12, news reports indicated that social media giant Meta had agreed to invest $14.3 billion into AI training data optimizer Scale AI, whose founder and CEO Alexandr Wang now being expected to join Meta in an executive role as part of the agreement.

Quarterly Earnings – The following firms identified among the IPO’s Top 300 Patent Recipients for 2024 are announcing quarterly earnings next week (2023 rank in parentheses):

• Monday: None
• Tuesday: None
• Wednesday: Accenture plc (t-281st)
• Thursday: None
• Friday: None

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