On May 21st, USPTOUnited States Patent and Trademark Office. See also PTO. Director-nominee John Squires appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a confirmation hearing, alongside three other nominees to serve in the Trump administration. While much of the Senators’ and media’s focus was on the other nominees, those following patent policy took note of Squires’s welcome calls for enhancing patent quality. This message was paired, however, with support for loosening patent eligibility standards, which would seem to undermine patent quality enhancement efforts.
In his opening statement, Squires emphasized the need for patents to be “born strong” with “robust quality marks” to help “reclaim America’s primacy, revitalize industry and growth, export our culture, boost national security, and improve our lives.” On the heels of last month’s damning Government Accountability Office report finding systemic patent quality issues at the USPTOUnited States Patent and Trademark Office. See also PTO., it’s encouraging to see Squires’s emphasis on an issue that must be a priority for new leadership.
Proponents of patent quality—and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTABPatent Trial and Appeal Board. Reviews adverse decisions of examiners on written appeals of applicants and appeals of reexaminations, and conducts inter partes reviews and post-grant reviews. The Board also continues to decide patent interferences, as it was known as the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) before the AIA.) as a vital check on that quality—had reason for optimism in later questioning from Senator Ted Cruz. In response to Cruz’s question about whether the PTABPatent Trial and Appeal Board. Reviews adverse decisions of examiners on written appeals of applicants and appeals of reexaminations, and conducts inter partes reviews and post-grant reviews. The Board also continues to decide patent interferences, as it was known as the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) before the AIA. is “effectively an arm of Big Tech,” Squires did not play into that misleading narrative, citing a 68% patent “defect” rate as evidence, not of the PTABPatent Trial and Appeal Board. Reviews adverse decisions of examiners on written appeals of applicants and appeals of reexaminations, and conducts inter partes reviews and post-grant reviews. The Board also continues to decide patent interferences, as it was known as the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) before the AIA. being a Big Tech patent “death squad,” but of far too many weak patents being issued at the examination stage. Accordingly, Squires rightly called for taking steps “to incentivize getting the prior artPrior art is the knowledge in the field of a patent that was publicly available before the patent was filed. in at the examination stage or closely thereafter,” rather than gutting the PTABPatent Trial and Appeal Board. Reviews adverse decisions of examiners on written appeals of applicants and appeals of reexaminations, and conducts inter partes reviews and post-grant reviews. The Board also continues to decide patent interferences, as it was known as the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) before the AIA. and allowing low-quality patents to remain in force, as the current Acting Director seems intent on doing.
Squires fielded his first question from Chairman Grassley and seemingly downplayed his prior involvement with the litigation investor Fortress Investment Group while going out of his way to note that “[patent] trollAn entity in the business of being infringed — by analogy to the mythological troll that exacted payments from the unwary. Cf. NPE, PAE, PME. See Reitzig and Henkel, Patent Trolls, the Sustainability of ‘Locking-in-to-Extort’ Strategies, and Implications for Innovating Firms. practices are exploitative of inventors.” It was a brief exchange, so this is reading tea leaves, but it is hopefully an indication that he will help orient the USPTOUnited States Patent and Trademark Office. See also PTO. toward protecting our patent system against some of the worst actors that utilize it.
Regarding the more concerning aspects of Squires’s responses, he commented on competition with China largely in the context of subject matter eligibility, including the supposedly “troubling” fact that “the Chinese national patent system has a more expansive patent subject matter area than the United States does.” (This incorrect statement is based on an article replete with motivated interpretations and sloppy analysis, as both we[1][2] and others have shown before.) In questioning from Senators Coons and Tillis, respectively, he implied opposition to the Alice and Myriad precedents and support for the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA). As we’ve covered at length, by broadening patent-eligible criteria beyond the Supreme Court’s long-standing interpretation, PERA would exacerbate the very issues Squires says he wants to combat—low-quality patents being granted and weaponized by trolls and other bad-faith actors.
We look forward to seeing Squires’s written responses to questions supplied by committee members and closely following the remainder of his confirmation process, but he certainly gave patent policy observers plenty to chew on in the little time that he was allocated to testify.
