Squires Denies Apple IPR Under Revvo for Inconsistent Position on Limiting Preambles

Last week, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John Squires issued a decision denying institution of inter partes review (IPR) proceedings petitioned by tech giant Apple to challenge patent rights owned by WeCrevention, the intellectual property holding subsidiary of Taiwanese semiconductor developer Etron Technology. Director Squires’ ruling continues the ongoing crackdown against gamesmanship at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) by petitioners pursuing positions inconsistent with district court litigation to increase their odds of invalidating competitor patent rights.

Inconsistent Positions on Claim Construction Underscored by Director Review Ruling

WeCrevention filed a patent infringement suit against Apple last October in the Western District of Texas, alleging that all Apple products manufactured since September 2019 that contain low power double data rate 5 (LPDDR) dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), including several versions of the iPhone, MacBook and iPad, infringed WeCrevention’s patent claims to memory chip modules. In response, Apple filed petitions for IPR proceedings challenging all five patents asserted in Western Texas district court by WeCrevention.

In one IPR petition, Apple took the position that no claims required construing to determine validity and that all claim terms should be construed to their plain and ordinary meaning. In another IPR petition, Apple stated that it had not conceded that preamble language “high speed memory chip module” was limiting on the claim.

However, Director Squires noted that these positions were problematic in light of conflicting arguments raised by Apple in the Western Texas litigation. There, claim construction briefing filed by Apple this May argued that the preamble language should be limiting upon WeCrevention’s patent claims because the preamble phrase “contains the core of what the inventors ‘actually invented and intended to encompass by the claims.’”

Director Squires’ ruling also highlights inconsistencies with Apple’s positions regarding the construction of the claim term “input/output unit.” While Apple’s IPR petitions identified the “input/output unit” of the claimed low-voltage memory modules as a means-plus-function limitation under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f), Apple expressly said that it was not conceding that the patent claims provided adequate structure to establish “input/output unit” as a means-plus-function limitation. In Western Texas, however, Apple argued that this claim language invalidated WeCrevention’s patent claims for failure to recite adequate structure as required by Section 112(f). Apple’s failure to concede adequate structure at the PTAB thus allowed the petitioner to rely on invalidity arguments based on structure Apple itself said was inadequate in parallel infringement proceedings.

Rulings Voice Issues of Strategic Spill-Over Into PTAB By Market Dominant Companies

“As I have indicated previously, petitioners should be presenting a single construction and applying that construction consistently,” wrote Squires, citing to his March 2026 discretionary denial on Director’s review of IPR proceedings between Infineon Technologies and MOSAID Technologies. In siding with WeCrevention’s request for discretionary denial, Squires agreed with the patent owner that Apple’s inconsistent IPR petitions warranted denial under Revvo Technologies v. Cerebrum Sensor Technologies (2025), a PTAB precedential decision in which Director Squires sua sponte vacated institution of IPR proceedings because the Board failed to require petitioner Revvo to explain why its claim constructions positions in IPR conflicted with its district court arguments.

Squires’ ruling in Revvo last November had immediate impact on institution practices at the PTAB and was cited the day after it was issued in another decision on Director review that dismissed an IPR petitioned by Tesla for inconsistent claim construction arguments. In that ruling, Squires rejected Tesla’s arguments that different constructions were warranted because Tesla couldn’t pursue indefiniteness in IPR. Failures to properly explain findings that diverge from district court proceedings also led Squires to partially vacate another PTAB ruling last week for invalidating a patent claim found infringed and not invalid in a jury verdict.

Highlighting that Congress intended for IPR to be used as an alternative to district court litigation, Squires cited “concerns of strategic litigation behavior spill-over into the PTAB” in denying Apple’s IPR against WeCrevention. Squires voiced similar concerns in another decision on Director review this May denying IPR proceedings petitioned by Magnolia Medical Technologies, which was using the IPR process to “obtain a second bite at the apple after losing in district court,” according to Squires’ ruling in that IPR. That ruling also highlighted the fact that the top ten companies filing IPR petitions since the PTAB’s establishment are all market dominant companies, including Apple, which has filed 1,165 petitions for validity challenges at the PTAB.