New USPTO Director Continues IPR Shake-Up

Earlier this year the acting director of the USPTO “” even before the new USPTO director had been confirmed by the Senate. Director John Squires has now been confirmed, and he has taken this “shake-up” to a whole new level.

Background and Prior Changes

To review, the IPR process was created by the 2011 Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) as a faster, more cost-effective alternative to challenging patent validity in court. Often used by defendants in infringement cases, an IPR begins when a challenger files a petition with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), laying out arguments for why a patent claim should be invalidated.

Historically, a three-judge panel of the PTAB would evaluate a petition and determine whether to institute an IPR based on the merits of the presented invalidity case. On occasion, the panel or the USPTO Director would deny institution on discretionary factors, such as whether parallel litigation would be resolved before the PTAB could issue its final decision. In 2022, the then-director narrowed the use of discretionary denials in what was referred to as the . In 2025, Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart rescinded the Fintiv memo and implemented a new bifurcated procedure that enabled patent owners to directly request discretionary denial by the Director, setting out a range of factors that would be considered, including, controversially, whether the patent owner had “settled expectations” that its patent would not be challenged based on how long it had been in force. This new procedure led to a dramatic increase in discretionary denials, each one communicated with a two or three-page order setting forth the broad rationale for the denial.

Director Squires Continues the Shake-up

The Senate confirmed John Squires as USPTO Director on September 18, 2025. Since then, Director Squires has taken additional steps that appear designed to weaken the IPR process. Specifically, on October 17, 2025, he issued an “An From America’s Innovation Agency” addressed to “Colleagues, Inventors, and Americans.”

In the Letter, Director Squires:

• Reminds us that the statute, 35 U.S.C. § 314(a), assigns to the Director the task of determining when an IPR should be instituted;
• Contends that the delegation of the institution decision to the PTAB has led to a number of “difficulties,” including:
  • the perception that the PTAB is incentivized to institute IPRs to “fill[] its own docket”;
  • that the new bifurcated process for discretionary denials has “inadvertently produced extraordinarily high institution rates”; and
  • that the statute clearly assigns the institution decision to the “Director – not the Board as delegees -”(emphasis original). 
• To address these issues, he instituted a new policy, set forth in an attached with the subject “Director Institution of AIA Trial Proceedings,” in which he states that the Director “will determine whether to institute trials in all IPR and PGR proceedings [based on a] review of discretionary considerations, the merits, and non-discretionary considerations . . . .”(emphasis added).

Now, not only will the Director consider discretionary factors, but he will also consider the technical merits of the case, i.e., whether the challenger has shown a reasonable likelihood of success on at least one challenged claim. What’s more, he will issue “summary notice” of his decisions. The first such was issued on October 31, 2025, denying institution of 13 petitions with no explanation whatsoever.

These dramatic changes have left many worried about the future of the IPR process. In a responsive dated October 20, 2025, Thomas Krause, former Solicitor and Director Review Executive at the USPTO, expressed “consternation throughout the innovation ecosystem” caused by the Director’s new policy. He provided a point-by-point challenge to the Director’s new policy and his rationale for it, including accusations of bias in favor of litigation funders and non-practicing entities, and that the new policy is unlawful. 

Why it Matters:

By assuming decision authority on the merits of institution decisions, the Director has reshaped the IPR process, which will force both challengers and patent owners to rethink their strategy with respect to IPRs.

Patent challengers will now have to decide whether it makes strategic and economic sense to file an IPR when there is now a better chance it will be summarily denied with no explanation, leaving them nothing to show for their investment.

Patent owners, on the other hand, can take some comfort in the diminished roll IPRs are likely to play in patent litigation.

These new policies will no doubt spark legal challenges, but for now, the IPR landscape has changed dramatically.

These new procedures also apply to Post Grant Review (PGR) proceedings, also established by the AIA, which can be filed up to nine months after a patent issues.  35 U.S.C § 321.

In addition to his actions described here with respect to IPRs, Director Squires also caused controversy in other areas, including his intent to loosen eligibility requirements to allow more patents, especially in technologies like artificial intelligence.

On the same day as Squires' Open Letter, the USPTO published governing the institution of IPRs.  Described as “intended to promote fairness, efficiency, and predictability in patent disputes,” the USPTO justified the new rules by focusing on the burden the current IPR system places on innovators and the negative impact IPRs have on the economics of bringing new inventions to market. Specifically, among other things, the proposed rules fault parallel validity challenges and include a new rule requiring every IPR petitioner to stipulate not to challenge the subject patent under §§ 102 (anticipation) or 103 (obviousness) in any other forum.