by Dennis Crouch

We have another mandamus petition at the Federal Circuit challenging the USPTO's IPR institution denials. In re Tesla, Inc., No. 26-116 (Fed. Cir. filed Dec. 2, 2025). The case involves patents asserted by Granite Vehicle Ventures LLC against Tesla's Self-Driving technology. But the petition's significance extends well beyond this particular dispute. Tesla advances a statutory interpretation argument that, if accepted, would fundamentally constrain the USPTO's claimed authority to deny IPR institution based on factors Congress never authorized.

The core legal question is simple: Does 35 U.S.C. § 314(a) grant the Director unfettered discretion to invent new reasons to deny IPR institution? The USPTO has increasingly claimed discretionary power to justify denials based on a variety of novel explanations including "time-to-trial" concerns, "settled expectations," and other criteria that do not appear in AIA or its legislative history.  In its petition, Tesla argues the USPTO's approach transforms a provision limiting the Director's authority into an unlimited grant of power to nullify IPR entirely.

by Dennis Crouch

In consecutive weeks, the Federal Circuit has reversed two jury verdicts totaling over $80 million in pharmaceutical patent disputes, holding in both cases that the specifications failed (as a matter of law) to satisfy §112(a)'s disclosure requirements. Seagen Inc. v. Daiichi Sankyo Company, Ltd., Nos. 2023-2424 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 2, 2025); Duke University v. Sandoz Inc., No. 2024-1078 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 18, 2025).

In my view, these cases represent a significant doctrinal development. I see these as revealing three interconnected trends:

1. The Federal Circuit's increasing willingness to treat patent specifications as legal texts subject to judicial interpretation of the text rather than factual determinations of its meaning;
2. The practical (re)convergence of written description and enablement into a unified adequacy inquiry; and
3. The court's growing confidence in overturning jury verdicts on §112(a) grounds as a matter of law.

by Dennis Crouch

The Federal Circuit has affirmed a judgment invalidating patent claims for indefiniteness where the claims used "optimal" and "best" language without providing objective boundaries for those terms of degree. Akamai Technologies, Inc. v. MediaPointe, Inc., No. 2024-1571 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 25, 2025).

by Dennis Crouch

The Federal Circuit's 2022 decision in Thaler v. Vidal seemed to settle a fundamental question: only natural persons can be inventors under U.S. patent law.  But, the bigger near-term question has always been about human-AI collaboration - and what level of human contribution is sufficient to qualify as inventive.  Director Kathi Vidal implemented a team-based framework that allowed patenting if the human made a "more than insignificant contribution" to the invention.  This approach basically asked whether the human had done enough to be considered a joint joint inventor (alongside the AI). While that approach had some conceptual problems (permitting patenting without complete human inventorship), it - at least - set a standard for the agency to consider.

In a November 2025 guidance, new USPTO Director John Squires has rejected the Vidal approach and instead established a "don't ask, don't tell" policy for AI-assisted inventions creates a presumption of human inventorship so long as any natural person is willing to sign the oath.  For all practical purposes, this approach is also a repudiation of Thaler, so long as the patent applicant is able to find a human close to the invention willing to self-identify as the inventor. The system now effectively rewards an old habit in invention culture: when attribution becomes optional and unverifiable, someone will always be willing to step forward and claim the mantle of inventor.  In a chapter I wrote a few years ago examining corporate invention, I observed: "It is easy to identify a human with some relation to the product or innovation and prop-up that human as the inventor." Dennis Crouch, Legal Fictions and the Corporation as an Inventive Artificial Intelligence in R. Abbott ed., Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence (Edward Elgar Publ’g 2022).

by Dennis Crouch

Three new mandamus petitions recently arrived at the Federal Circuit, each attempting to navigate around the court's November 6 decisions that rejected challenges to the USPTO's expanded use of discretionary denials.

• In re Google LLC (No. 26-111),
• In re Intel Corporation and Lenovo (No. 26-113), and
• In re Kangxi Communication Technologies (No. 26-115)

The new petitions raise arguments their counsel contend are distinct from those already rejected in In re Motorola Solutions, Inc., No. 2025-134 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 6, 2025) (precedential). The petitions challenge both the "settled expectations" rule and parallel proceeding denials, while advancing novel theories designed to overcome the § 314(d) bar that has proved insurmountable for prior petitioners. Whether these distinctions carry legal weight remains to be seen, but the filings reflect a coordinated effort to keep pressure on the Federal Circuit as Director John Squires continues to deny IPR institution at a 0% rate.

Since assuming personal control of all IPR institution decisions in October 2025, Director Squires has denied every petition reaching his desk, now totaling 91 consecutive denials. These summary notices contain no reasoning or analysis, listing only IPR numbers alongside the statement institution "is denied." The practice stands in stark contrast to the PTAB's historic institution rate of approximately 67%. Meanwhile, the USPTO's proposed rulemaking (comments due December 2, 2025) would codify categorical bars to IPR institution without addressing the "settled expectations" doctrine or the practice of no-explanation denials. (Note that these  new petitions are all based upon actions by Acting Dir. Stewart, the Squires-prompted petitioners are coming next month).

by Dennis Crouch

Director John Squires has released a new set of IPR institution decisions. The third grouping since taking personal charge of the institution decision making process in October 2025. Once again, the institution rate remains 0%, but the newest batch include some ray of hope for petitioners.

Let me explain. By mid-November, Dir Squires had decided 34 institution decisions - denying each and resulting in my 0% institution rate post.  The newest batch includes three groupings:

• 56 new cases discretionarily denied;
• 31 new cases that were not denied, but that still need to "be reviewed for
  merits and non-discretionary considerations;"
• 1 new case denied on the merits; and
• 0 new cases instituted.

by Dennis Crouch

Micron v. Longhorn IP, Appeal No. 2023-2007 (Fed. Cir. 2025)

This interesting pending case focuses on an Idaho state law  regulating patent trolls. Idaho Code § 48-1703(1).

"It is unlawful for a person to make a bad faith assertion of patent infringement in a demand letter, a complaint or any other communication."

Back in 2022, Katana, an affiliate Longhorn, sued Micron for patent infringement in the W.D.Tex. Micron responded in two ways: it asserted a counterclaim under Idaho's statute in the Texas case and, one month later, filed a separate Idaho action against Longhorn under the same theory. The cases were later consolidated in Idaho, and Judge David Nye ordered Longhorn or Katana to post an $8 million bond under the Idaho law before the case could move forward.  In the process, Judge Nye upheld the Idaho law against preemption and First Amendment (petition the government) challenges and also found a "reasonable likelihood" of bad faith assertion by Katana. The case is now on appeal before the Federal Circuit with oral arguments held recently before Judges Lourie, Schall, and Stoll.

Idaho is the only state whose anti-troll statute expressly regulates complaints filed in federal court. Most states, including Vermont, explicitly exclude litigation conduct from their statutes. Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 9, § 4197(a). Idaho's statute also authorizes an uncapped bond when a target shows "reasonable likelihood" of bad faith, without requiring findings equivalent to either the Federal Circuit's established standard for bad faith assertion liability which requires objective baselessness plus subjective bad faith.  See also, Professional Real Estate Investors, Inc. v. Columbia Pictures Industries, 508 U.S. 49 (1993) (sham litigation test).

by Dennis Crouch

Agilent Technologies has petitioned the Supreme Court to review the Federal Circuit's June 2025 decision affirming PTAB invalidation of two pioneering CRISPR gene-editing patents.  The case turned on a prior art abandoned patent application containing prophetic examples that were never reduced to practice.  Citing prior precedent, the Federal Circuit held that the reference was presumed to be enabling and required no additional proof of efficacy.  The petition challenges these holdings, asking:

1. Should printed publications be presumed to be enabling when a party challenging the validity of issued patent claims asserts that a printed publication is anticipatory prior art, such that the burden of proving that the printed publication is nonenabling lies with the patentee?

2. Should the holding in Rasmusson v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 413 F.3d 1318, 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2005), that “proof of efficacy is not required in order for a reference to be enabled for purposes of anticipation,” be vacated or significantly narrowed?

Agilent Petition. See also, Dennis Crouch, Federal Circuit Clarifies Enablement Standards: Amgen Doesn’t Control Anticipatory Prior Art, Patently-O (June 11, 2025).

The petition arrives at this important moment as AI systems threaten to flood the patent system with billions of speculative disclosures. As most of us have experienced, the difficulty with GenAI outputs is that the technical hypotheses often seem reasonable on the surface and are presented with confident, authoritative language, but they typically suffer from the major defect of having little grounding in reality. With billions of new AI-generated documents published over the past few years, separating the wheat from the chaff ex ante becomes practically impossible.  But after-the-fact, patent challengers will be able to identify the winners in hindsight. The result is a prior art landscape increasingly populated with plausible-sounding but potentially non-operative disclosures that the current legal framework treats as equivalent to genuine inventions.

By Dennis Crouch

USPTO Director John Squires is increasingly positioning the patent system as an instrument of both national and international technology policy.  In October 2025, Dir.  Squires foreshadowed an anti-China approach within the U.S. patent system.  That endeavor appears to now be taking its first steps with a Show Cause order requiring Yangtze Memory Technologies Company (YMTC) to justify why its IPR petitions against Micron patents should proceed despite being named on the Department of Commerce's Entity List as an organization "reasonably believed to be involved, or to pose a significant risk of being or becoming involved, in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States."  Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. v. Micron Technology, Inc., IPR2025-00098, IPR2025-00099, Paper 33 (USPTO Nov. 10, 2025).  YMTC's Ropes & Gray attorneys have until the 24th of November to reply.

To be clear, YMTC is not an ordinary China-based company.  YMTC reached the Entity List after first being placed on the Unverified List in October 2022 when BIS was unable to complete end-use checks to verify that exported technology was being used as declared. Under President Biden, YMTC was added to the Entity List based on findings that the company creates a major risk of diversion (sharing key technology) with other parties on the entities list, including Huawei and Hangzhou Hikvision.  In January 2024, the Department of Defense also designated YMTC as a "Chinese Military Company Operating in the United States." The company was founded in 2016 by partially state-owned Tsinghua Unigroup with approximately $24 billion in initial investment including substantial funding from the Hubei provincial government and the state-owned China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, and later received billions more in government capital infusions. Congressional correspondence has highlighted YMTC's alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party and People's Liberation Army, and noted that some YMTC executives previously worked for Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, another Entity List designee.

So, the idea here is that YMTC is a potential quiet saboteur.  Micron has been ringing this bell loudly for years.  Of course, Micron also has an enormous financial interest in villainizing YMTC.  In addition to its Entity status, Micron has also argued that the Chinese Government is a Real-Party-in-Interest that should have been named in the IPR petition. And, in the background is a legalistic argument that Return Mail should be extended to preclude IPR petitions where a any national government is petitioner or RPI.  Although this post is focused on YMTC, I also want to note that the Entity List has become a principal tool of U.S. economic and technology policy toward China, with hundreds of Chinese entities now listed.

One question here is whether USPTO actions against YMTC can be reconciled with U.S. commitments under international patent treaties.

Paris Convention National Treatment Obligations

by Dennis Crouch

The Federal Circuit reversed a district court's indefiniteness holding, ruling that courts have authority to correct an obvious claim error through claim construction where the error is evident on the face of the patent and only one reasonable correction exists. Canatex Completion Solutions, Inc. v. Wellmatics, LLC, No. 2024-1466 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 12, 2025).  The court relied upon its own prior precedent and referred back to the foundational case of I.T.S. Rubber Co. v. Essex Rubber Co., 272 U.S. 429 (1926) that permits judicial correction -- while distinguishes Chef America, Inc. v. Lamb-Weston, Inc., 358 F.3d 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (declining to correct).

Canatex owns U.S. Patent No. 10,794,122, which claims a releasable connection device used in oil and gas wells. The device included two parts ("first part" and "second part") that lock together during normal operations but can be separated. All three asserted independent claims (1, 7, and 13) contain language stating that a locking piston moves "to release the connection profile of the second part." The problem is that the phrase "the connection profile of the second part" had no antecedent basis in the claim.  Rather, the prior portion of the claim identified "a connection profile of the first part."

When defendants challenged the claims as indefinite for lack of antecedent basis, Canatex argued that "second" was an obvious error that should be construed as "first," pointing to the claim language and specification showing that only the first part has a connection profile and that this is what gets released when the two parts disconnect. The S.D. Tex. Judge Alfred Bennett rejected the patentee's argument and instead found the claims invalid as indefinite.

While the appeal was pending, the patentee sought a certificate of correction from the USPTO to change "second" to "first." But the office rejected the petition, finding that the requested correction was "more than a clerical or typographical mistake."

The I.T.S. Rubber Foundation for Judicial Correction

by Dennis Crouch

USPTO Dir John Squires has now issued 34 decisions on IPR institution since assuming personal control of the institution process in October 2025, with all 34 petitions denied. The Director's November 6, 2025 notice denies institution in 21 additional IPRs, following an October 31 notice denying 13 others. These summary orders provide no reasoning or analysis, listing only the denied IPR numbers and stating that "institution of inter partes review is denied." The Director appears to be using institutional silence as a policy instrument to strengthen patent rights by avoiding substantive review. The current 0% institution rate stands in sharp contrast to the PTAB's historic institution rate of approximately 67%.  This raises questions in my mind about whether the IPR system can continue to function as the alternative to district court litigation that Congress envisioned in the America Invents Act.

The statute grants the Director authority to determine whether to institute inter partes review under 35 U.S.C. § 314(a), but assigns the PTAB responsibility to conduct the trial and issue a final written decision under 35 U.S.C. § 318(a). Since the AIA's enactment in 2011, every USPTO Director delegated the institution determination to three-judge PTAB panels. Director David Kappos, who lobbied for the AIA's passage and oversaw its implementation, established this delegation framework. The practice continued for over a decade, with PTAB judges spending hours reviewing each petition, considering the substantive patentability showing and discretionary factors, and drafting reasoned institution decisions that provided guidance to the patent bar.

Acting Director Stewart began reclaiming institution decision authority in early 2025, personally reviewing selected cases where Patent Owners requested discretionary denial. Director Squires has now taken full personal control over all institution decisions. The shift creates a practical problem: PTAB judges previously devoted substantial time to evaluating each petition's technical merits and legal arguments before reaching institution decisions. Director Squires, while simultaneously managing a multi-billion dollar agency with over 10,000 employees, obviously lacks the available time of a cadre of specialized PTAB judges. This resource constraint, combined with the practice of issuing summary notices without written analysis, leads me to infer that petitions are receiving only cursory review. The no-opinion denial format permits this superficial examination while obscuring whether the Director has meaningfully evaluated the substantive patentability showing or merely applied categorical rules based on Patent Owner discretionary denial requests.