Squires Emphasizes AI, Dubs Inherited Backlog ‘An Absolute Dumpster Fire’ and a ‘Betrayal’

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John Squires delivered his first public remarks on Friday, addressing a number of key issues he has been focused on during his first five weeks in office.

With respect to the Office’s backlog, he told attendees of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) Annual Meeting that his administration “inherited an unexamined patent application backlog that was an absolute dumpster fire.”

Squires noted that the backlog was at 837,928 unexamined applications on January 20 and that the number jumped from 576,103 in 2020 to 837,928 in January 2025, adding that this represents a “total betrayal of American inventors who deserve better.” The number today stands at 788,229, representing a reduction of about 50,000 applications since January.

The Office has also saved $315 million by reining in travel and reevaluating contracts, among other actions, which Squires said has resulted in “a full one-third of the reserves we’re now using to stay open and almost twice what I need to keep the Trademark Business Unit open into the new year.”

He listed some of the actions the Office is taking to further address the backlog as well, such as hiring 1,100 new examiners; launching the Streamlined Claim Set Pilot Program; and implementing new IT tools, including the AI-assisted Automated Search Pilot (ASAP!).

This focus on using AI in USPTO operations to improve examination quality and timing has been a priority of Squires’ since before he was confirmed. “With AI, there’s no excuse for missing prior art,” Squires said. He also noted that AI has resulted in “record-low trademark pendency,” and assisting the Trademarks Register Protection Office to remove around 61,000 invalid applications and registrations.

AI took the spotlight in Squires’ remarks generally, and he called it “the most transcendent and transformative technology of our time, perhaps of any time.”

He also told attendees that there is no need to overhaul the patent law to protect AI, as proper application of existing laws is sufficient to secure patent rights for technologies of the future. “Eligibility follows architecture,” Squires remarked, explaining that the Office will be looking for “the something more that Alice and Mayo tell us to look for” when it comes to eligibility analyses.

“When technology rewires how information flows, that’s when invention begins.” He pointed to the decision in Ex parte Desjardins, Appeal 2024-000567 (Decided September 26, 2025), as well as the first patents he signed—which were directed to distributed ledger/crypto and medical diagnostics technologies—as proof that the Office is committed to ensuring that transformative technologies remain eligible.

“If there is any one thing I am going to accomplish in my tenure, it’s this—making sure the door to the patent office is wide open to transformative technologies,” Squires said.