Acting Director Releases First Decisions Under New Bifurcated Process

On May 16, 2025, USPTO Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart released the first four discretionary denial decisions under the PTAB's new process. Under the new process, the parties separately brief discretionary denial issues and then the Director issues a decision on whether discretionary denial is appropriate. The Acting Director discretionarily denied review in two cases and granted review in another two cases. The decisions in each of these four cases focus almost entirely on the timing between the trial court schedule and the schedule of proceedings before the PTAB. The Acting Director dismissed other procedural arguments as insufficiently explained.

For example, in Twitch Interactive Inc. v. Razdog Holdings LLC, the Acting Director determined that discretionary denial was not appropriate. IPR2025-00307, IPR2025-00308, Paper 18 (May 16, 2025). The Acting Director noted that the Patent Owner's request was primarily based on a parallel proceeding in the Northern