Manufacturing Announcements Can Influence Patentability Challenges: What Quantum Computing Companies Should Know

In September 2026, the Commerce Department finalizedCHIPS Act R&D awards up to $100 million each to several quantum computing companies—including D-Wave, Rigetti, Quantinuum, and PsiQuantum—to improve their manufacturing capabilities and domestic supply chains.

Since March 2026, the U.S. Patent Office has treated domestic manufacturing as a factor affecting whether it will hear a challenge to the patentability of issued patent claims. Consequently, how a company describes funding like the CHIPS Act awards, and its manufacturing plans, can affect a challenge it later brings or defends in a Patent Office proceeding called inter partes review (IPR). IPR is a fast-track trial before an expert administrative panel (called the PTAB) that tests the validity of patent claims.