Evaluating the USPTO Director’s First Summary Denial of IPR Petitions

New York, November 11, 2025

On October 31, 2025, the Director of the USPTO, John Squires, issued a Notice denying institution of thirteen petitions for IPR.  The Notice provided no explanation for why the thirteen petitions were denied, creating uncertainty for patentees and patent challengers alike.  The summary nature of the Notice appears to be the first implementation of a procedure that Director Squires introduced in an October 17, 2025, memorandum to all PTAB judges, whereby absent “novel or important factual or legal issues,” the Director would issue “summary notices” granting or denying institution of IPR and PGR proceedings.  As explained below, our review of the thirteen denied petitions did not identify any facts suggesting that the Patent Office relied on any novel grounds for discretionary denial, consistent with this being the first implementation of the “summary notice” procedure. 

Over the last several months, the vast majority of discretionary denials decided by then Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart were based, at least in large part, on either:  (a) the settled expectations doctrine (a recently established doctrine pursuant to which institution is denied if the challenged patent issued at least six years before discretionary denial, thereby giving the patentee a settled expectation of validity); or (b) related proceedings (institution denied if the merits of the challenged patent have already been or will be adjudicated before or near the date of a final written decision (“FWD”) or in view of related proceedings).  Because the thirteen petitions in the October 31 Notice were summarily denied, and therefore presumably did not present novel or important factual or legal issues, we investigated whether the two factors above would explain the denials.  Based on our review, they do.

Denials Presumably Due To Settled Expectations:  As summarized in the following chart, at least nine of the thirteen IPR petitions related to patents that were issued six or more years ago. 

Then Acting Director Stewart denied many petitions in the past few months based solely on settled expectations.  Accordingly, for the above nine patent challenges, where the challenged patent issued at least six years ago, we did not look for another possible basis for discretionary denial.

Denials Presumably Due To Related Proceedings:  As summarized in the following chart, the four remaining petitions appear to have related parallel proceedings with trial dates either before or around the FWD deadline, and in some cases, also involve prior adjudications of the same or related patents. 

Takeaway:  Although it is possible the Director had other reasons for discretionarily denying the above petitions, our review of the thirteen denied petitions did not identify any facts suggesting that the Patent Office relied on any novel grounds for discretionary denial.  While this may provide some comfort to companies planning to use the IPR process, it remains important to continue to closely monitor this space as it develops.