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USPTO director Squires greenlights deputy Morgan Stewart’s PTAB discretionary denial program

Olivia Sophie Rafferty

Context:

  • Last month, the United States Senate confirmed dozens of Trump nominees, including John A. Squires as the new Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) (September 19, 2025 LinkedIn post by ip fray). During his confirmation hearing, Director Squires said he wants patents to be “born strong” in terms of thorough examination, leading to high-quality patents that withstand subsequent challenges at a higher rate than otherwise. He clarified that the invalidation rate of patents that actually get challenged is not indicative of the quality of all granted patents.
  • Following the departure of former USPTO Director Kathy Vidal, Coke Morgan Stewart served as Acting Director for eight months, during which she took various measures that the IP owner ecosystem welcomed. One of those measures was reinstating the NHK-Fintiv framework, allowing the PTAB to deny inter partes reviews (IPRs) if parallel district court litigation is ongoing (February 28, 2025 announcement by the USPTO). A month later, now-Deputy Director Morgan Stewart also sent a memo to all PTAB judges establishing a new process for America Invents Act (AIA) proceedings, which would mean that prior to any potential merits proceedings, there will be a Director review of the patentee’s arguments for discretionary denial (March 27, 2025 ip fray article).

What’s new: Director Squires has issued a Delegation of Authority for Deputy Director Morgan Stewart to continue the PTAB discretionary denial program, pictured below:

Direct impact: The new USPTO Director has largely been welcomed by the U.S.’s patent ecosystem, and this move will cement that. As noted by US Inventor President Randy Landreneau, this is great news for patent owners in the U.S. (September 30, 2025 LinkedIn post by Randy Landreneau): “Also, very telling is what those who align with large corporate interests like Big Tech are saying. They’re fighting mad.”

Wider ramifications: We had predicted that Deputy Director Morgan Stewart’s PTAB measures would lead to dictionary denials going up substantially, and, in June, this was confirmed by a Unified Patents report that found that between March and May this year alone, there were at least 42 decisions addressing Fintiv issues (June 12, 2025 ip fray article).

USPTO director John Squires

Before joining the USPTO, Mr. Squires was the Chair of the IP and Emerging Companies and IP practice at Dilworth Paxson and adjunct professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law. He was formerly Chief IP Counsel at Goldman Sachs and helped create Fortress Investment’s IP fund. Mr. Squires received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Bucknell University and earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law (magna cum laude).

As well as lead more than 13,500 employees to conduct high-quality and timely patent and trademark examination application reviews and proceedings to produce strong, reliable and predictable intellectual property rights, USPTO Director Squires will also provide guidance on matters of the U.S. patent policy.

The PTAB denials program

As noted above, a Unified Patents report confirmed that the PTAB denials program has led to a massive surge in PTAB discretionary denial decisions in the latter half of Q1 2025 alone (May 27, 2025 Unified Patents report).

Before Deputy Director Morgan Stewart’s actions, there were no denials under these factors; but those decisions now continue to grow, including in the following cases:

In June, the USPTO PTAB issued at least 13 more of such decisions, denying petitions for IPRs filed by Intel Corporation, Google, Nokia, Ericsson, Verizon, Cellco, AT&T, and Cambridge Industries. In one of those decisions, Ms. Stewart also offered guidance on when she will decide whether a patent owner can rest on settled expectations that its patent will not be challenged (June 27, 2025 ip fray article).