Context: A report by Unified Patents found in January that, in the face of a record-setting wave of procedural denials from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which rose more than 630% year-over-year, defendants increasingly turned to the USPTO for ex parte reexaminations in 2025. During an oversight hearing at the House of Representatives in March, Director John A. Squires of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) claimed that alleged infringers have several ways besides inter partes review (IPR) petitions to challenge patents at the USPTO and that reexaminations are quicker and have almost the same outcome experience as the PTAB (March 25, 2026 USPTO Oversight Hearing). But revoking patents through ex parte requests became a lot harder to seek in April, when United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John A. Squires introduced a new measure that aimed to “efficiently and effectively” address the recent increased volume of ex parte reexamination requests (April 2, 2026 ip fray article).
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