Stewart Denies iRhythm’s Bid to Review Decision Scrapping IPRs Based on ‘Settled Expectations’

In the latest development on U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Coke Morgan Stewart’s “settled expectations” doctrine, Stewart today denied iRhythm Technologies, Inc.’s request for Director Review of her own decision to discretionarily deny institution of iRhythm’s petitions for inter partes review challenging a number of patents owned by Welch Allyn, Inc.

The Director Discretionary Denial in iRhythm v. Welch Allyn was the first to elucidate Stewart’s view that the “settled expectations” of a patent owner generally outweigh other discretionary denial factors when a patent has been in force for more than six years. In the June 6 decision, Stewart denied institution of five IPRs brought by iRhythm against Welch Allyn, finding that, while several factors did weigh against denial, the failure of the petitioner to challenge the patent sooner and the “settled expectations” of the patent owner superseded those factors.

iRhythm filed a petition for Director Review in July, arguing that Welch Allyn let its patents lie dormant between 2012 and 2024, when it filed a lawsuit against iRhythm. “It never commercialized nor asserted them and now seeks simply to tax the commercial market it watched iRhythm build through millions of dollars of investment,” the petition said.

iRhythm also argued that Stewart’s rationale “violates the Director’s own binding precedent in NHK [Spring]”, a 2020 decision that [former USPTO] Director Iancu designated precedential and remains binding authority.”

In remarks made in June at the Intellectual Property Business Congress Global 2025, Stewart made it clear that the Office wants to encourage early validity challenges. “Filing an IPR many years after a patent has been granted should not be the primary mechanism for addressing patent quality, or correcting errors,” wrote IPWatchdog Founder and CEO Gene Quinn reporting on Stewart’s address. He continued: “The Office needs to focus on important cases, Stewart explained, and patents that have been in force 10, 12, 15 years or more may not be the best cases for the Office to be instituting.”

Last week, Stewart issued dozens more Director Discretionary Denial Decisions, including one in which she denied institution of an IPR challenging a patent that was just six years old based on settled expectations, which is thought to be the youngest patent to get the benefit of the doctrine so far.

Stewart’s denial of Director Review today did not include an explanation of her reasoning.