Posts in USPTO

Every U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director leaves office. Very few leave a legacy that could fundamentally change the future of American innovation. Director John A. Squires has an extraordinary opportunity to do just that. For more than a decade, independent inventors, startups, small businesses, universities, and those investing in American innovation have asked Congress to address the unintended consequences of the America Invents Act (AIA) and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Congress held hearings. Members acknowledged the problems. Legislation was introduced. Organizations rallied behind reform. Year after year, inventors traveled to Washington, told their stories, and pleaded for meaningful change. And year after year, the problems remained. Then came Director Squires.

Earlier this year, with an effective date of April 9, 2026, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) introduced the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) Informed Examination Request (PIER) Pilot Program. Curiously, while most USPTO pilot programs allow the applicant to opt in or opt out, the PIER Pilot Program precludes input from the applicant on the matter and rather imposes itself on the applicant. The USPTO decides which applications will take part in the PIER Pilot Program, and the decision is not challengeable.

One day after her petition for rehearing was denied by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), pro se inventor Carrie Hafeman has filed a petition for Extraordinary Director Review and Sua Sponte Review with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The petition asks the Director to vacate institution and the Final Written Decisions in six related inter partes reviews (IPRs) due to alleged Sotera Stipulation violations by Google and Microsoft.  

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision today in Google LLC v. DDC Technology, LLC, affirming the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) determinations that Google did not prove claims in three DDC Technology patents directed to hand-held virtual reality (VR) viewers unpatentable as obvious.

Today, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report on efforts at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to reduce the current backlog of unexamined U.S. patent applications at the agency, which announced its intention to reduce the backlog to fewer than 599,000 patent applications last September. The GAO’s report casts a pall on those efforts, which have been contributing to patent examiner attrition that, left unchecked, could prevent the USPTO from reaching its backlog reduction goal within the next five years.

A coalition of ten streaming, broadcasting, and audiovisual media organizations, including the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and the Streaming Innovation Alliance, sent a letter today to U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John Squires, urging him to “support strong public and private sector enforcement against abusive SEP licensing practices.” The signatories said that abuse of standard essential patents (SEPs) was undercutting the open process of setting standards for the video streaming technologies their members use.

Since April 5, 2026, a patent owner can file a paper opposing a request for ex parte reexamination (EPR) before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) decides whether to order it. Six months in, patent owners use the paper in about two of every five requests, requesters try to respond in most of those, and the Office keeps almost every response out. None of it has measurably changed how often reexamination is ordered. The order rate was already falling before the procedure began, and the small further decline since is not statistically significant.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Thursday affirmed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ruling that held certain claims of a patent for network intrusion monitoring and detection unpatentable as obvious. The opinion was authored by Judge Chen. U.S. Patent No. 7,895,641 is owned by BT Americas (BTA). Palo Alto Networks, Inc. petitioned for inter partes review (IPR) of the ‘641 patent, and the PTAB ultimately determined claims 1–7 and 15–17 would have been obvious in view of two prior art references.

For most of professional history, experience could not be separated from the professional who acquired it. Forms, manuals, and software captured portions of professional judgment, but the judgment itself remained human. That practical limitation preserved two distinctions the law depends on: the distinction between an employer’s property and an employee’s knowledge and skill, and the distinction between one client’s confidences and the next client’s matter. However, modern artificial intelligence (AI) removes this limitation.

Congress is considering a bill that would let patents on prescription drugs be rendered unenforceable over an honest paperwork error, even when the underlying invention is genuinely new, non-obvious, and valuable to patients. Supporters of the Medication Affordability and Patent Integrity Act (S. 2658), which the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee reported in July, say it will lower drug prices by closing what they describe as a loophole that drugmakers use to extend their monopolies.

Many intellectual property rights peacefully coexist because they apply to distinct aspects of a product. Issues can arise when intellectual property rights that expire and intellectual property rights that do not expire protect the same or overlapping features of the same product. One example is design patents and trade dress rights, both of which apply to non-functional ornamental features.

Artificial intelligence could help deliver the next generation of lifesaving medicines. It could also weaken the economic foundation that makes discovering those medicines possible. Both propositions deserve serious attention, and neither is mutually exclusive. Celebrating faster discovery tells only part of the story if the same technology allows competitors to appropriate the commercial opportunity created by pioneer research or obtain patent claims that obstruct the innovator’s next steps.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order list that included a denial of Google’s petition for writ of certiorari challenging the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) development of settled expectations doctrine at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). This latest setback to industry-wide efforts opposing the duration of a patent’s life in force as a consideration leading to discretionary denials of inter partes review (IPR) proceedings comes a few weeks after the U.S. Solicitor General urged denial of Google’s cert petition, agreeing with the Federal Circuit that such a challenge was not available on mandamus review.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision today in Google LLC v. Valtrus Innovations Ltd., affirming a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) final written decision that found Google did not demonstrate the unpatentability of claims 1 through 23 of a patent on merging search-result lists. The court rejected arguments that the Board relied on legally insufficient evidence to corroborate an inventor’s conception testimony and that substantial evidence did not support a finding of reasonably continuous diligence.