#uspto-policy

#uspto-policy

IPR institution rates under Director John Squires have begun to climb. My tracking data shows the six-week moving average rising from lows around 15% in August and September 2025 to somewhere in the range of 35-55% by late December 2025 and into January 2026. The rebound remains far below the historic average of roughly 67% that prevailed before Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart began centralizing discretionary denial authority followed by Director Squires assumption of personal control of all institution decisions in October 2025.

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.

Two additional mandamus petitions have joined the Federal Circuit's growing docket challenging the USPTO's 2025 shift toward more restrictive inter partes review (IPR) institution practices under President Trump, bringing the total to five pending cases that collectively test the boundaries of appellate review under 35 U.S.C. § 314(d). The newest petitions are In re HighLevel, Inc. (No. 25-148) and In re SanDisk Technologies, Inc. (No. 25-152).