A gatekeeping process for determining when a US Patent and Trademark Office tribunal will conduct a full-blown trial over a patent’s validity may shift, PTO Director John Squires—who has handled the decisions personally since his appointment—said Tuesday.
The PTO director’s office took control of the screening process in March 2025, replacing a function traditionally handled by administrative judges on the agency’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board—part of a series of changes that raised the bar for bringing patent challenges.
Squires brought up potential new tweaks to the process during an event at the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global IP Summit ...