Agenda

We are honored to have Coke Stewart, Deputy Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), join us for a conversation to kick off our PTAB Masters™ 2026 program. Stewart recently served as Acting USPTO Director, a role she assumed in January 2025 and held until the confirmation of Director John Squires on September 18, 2025. She previously…

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is undergoing a fundamental reset, which started in earnest once then Acting USPTO Director Coke Stewart took the helm, and has continued now that USPTO Director John Squires has been confirmed and assumed control of the agency. This panel will cut through the noise and zero in on how AIA trials are being…

This panel will pick up where our previous panel on the evolving PTAB landscape leaves off. Panelists will take the conversation forward—from what is changing at the PTAB to where AIA trials are heading next. Featuring former PTAB judges, this session delivers an unvarnished, insider perspective on how the PTAB is likely to operate once the current recalibration settles into…

The PTAB is being fundamentally realigned, but is this what Congress intended when it passed the America Invents Act (AIA) in 2011? While the AIA gives the USPTO Director nearly unfettered, non-appealable discretion when deciding whether or not to institute an AIA trial proceeding, there are some in Congress who have balked at the notion that petitioners do not have…

The pendulum at the PTAB has swung hard, and petitioners are feeling the squeeze. With discretionary denials expanding, serial-challenge limits tightening, and policy shifts favoring patent owners, the IPR process is looking less predictable—and in some cases, barely viable for at least some petitioners. This session delivers an unfiltered petitioner-side assessment of the new PTAB reality. We will dig into…

With the PTAB losing altitude and discretionary denial becoming the norm, Texas has once again become the premier venue for patent owners who want real leverage. This session drills into why district-court litigation and licensing campaigns are increasingly operating with minimal PTAB drag, giving patent owners cleaner paths to pressure alleged infringers, faster timelines, and stronger settlement dynamics. We will…

With IPRs becoming harder to win and increasingly vulnerable to discretionary denial, defendants are being forced to rethink their entire PTAB playbook. This session cuts straight to the emerging alternatives—PGR, ex parte reexamination, and other underutilized tools that are rapidly becoming essential parts of a modern defense strategy. We’ll break down when PGR truly gives defendants an edge, how reexamination…

For the first time in years, the PTAB winds are blowing squarely in favor of patent owners—and smart teams are capitalizing. This session cuts to the chase on how to leverage today’s pro-patent environment to win AIA trials outright or shut them down before they start. From aggressive discretionary-denial practice to a more receptive Board on merits, the landscape has…

This panel will deliver an unfiltered look at Federal Circuit review of PTAB decisions. We will focus on how mandamus petitions, recent precedential decisions, and emerging appellate trends are redefining the PTAB—and forcing the USPTO to recalibrate on the fly. We will walk through the surge in mandamus challenges targeting discretionary denial and examine Federal Circuit decisions to date on…