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June was a tale of two stages. At the front door, institution kept narrowing across the June decisions in our tracker – just 8 of 18 were instituted (44.4%), with seven of the ten denials discretionary. But once petitions cleared that gate, the merits told the opposite story: of 46 final written decisions, petitioners knocked out at least some claims in 57%.
The war is won or lost at institution – and institution now belongs to the Director, whose May Magnolia Medical opinion framed the PTAB as an alternative to, not an expansion of, district-court litigation. June’s decisions put that philosophy into practice.
Micron Technology v. Yangtze Memory Technologies Co.
IPR2025-00189, -00117, -00118
Posture
Three IPRs against a Chinese memory maker’s NAND/DRAM portfolio, decided together at final written decision.
Held
The Board invalidated all challenged claims in two of the three patents; the third survived intact – a 2-of-3 petitioner result.
Why it matters
A U.S. manufacturer clearing foreign-owned memory patents is the domestic-industry storyline in miniature – and proof that strong technical prior art still wins once you are past institution.
TC 2100 · search
Microsoft Corporation v. X1 Discovery, Inc
IPR2025-00253, -00254, -00255
Posture
Three IPRs against an e-discovery/search patent family (TC 2100), decided at FWD.
Held
All challenged claims survived across all three proceedings – a clean patent-owner sweep against a top-tier petitioner.
Why it matters
Institution is not destiny. Computer-architecture and search claims proved the most resilient at trial this year; a well-defended software patent can beat even Microsoft’s prior art.
Squires · June 22, 2026
Light & Wonder v. Evolution Malta Ltd.
IPR2025-01072, -01073, -01078
Posture
The Director took review of a notice that had granted institution – and reversed course.
Held
Director Squires vacated the notice granting institution and denied institution outright – an emphatic use of the Director’s reclaimed §314 authority.
Why it matters
Institution is no longer final until the Director says so. Build the discretionary record as if the Director is the only audience – because now he is.
Beyond Light & Wonder, the Director vacated-in-part a final
decision and remanded in Samsung Display v. Pictiva (June 22) on §314(a) parallel-proceedings
grounds Director Review now reaches both ends of a case. A separate June 12 decision denied
institution over undisclosed foreign-government real-party-in-interest ties.
Settled expectations is mainstream
What began in iRhythm v. Welch Allyn is now a leading denial ground – the length a patent has been in force can carry a denial even where the Fintiv factors favor institution. For patents over a decade old, expect it in every discretionary brief.
Sotera is not a silver bullet
Post-Boalick, a timely Sotera stipulation is “highly relevant” but no longer dispositive against an early trial date – and ITC parallel proceedings are back within the Fintiv analysis.
Federal Circuit watch – Apple v. Squires (No. 24-1864).
The reexam migration — with a first pause
Monthly re-examination requests fell from a May peak of 136 to 79 in June – the first notable pullback since the surge began, possibly the new April “pre-order” procedure. Even so, reexam remains the destination of choice, while IPR filings thinned to just 22.
A useful cross-check. The national IPR institution grant rate recovered to 47.4% in June – close to GreyB’s tracked 44.4%.
District-court filings rose over the same window: the fight has been rerouted, not slowed.
Across the 64 proceedings with a June decision, activity was defined by Kubota’s seven-petition freedom-to-operate campaign against Vermeer – top petitioner and top target in one dispute – alongside a medical-device cluster (Abbott/Miracor, ResMed/Cleveland Medical). The pattern holds all year: manufacturers challenging patents in their own product space, with tight technical prior art and little Fintiv exposure, are the Board’s most successful petitioners.
Instituted NPE cases remain genuine contests – Tesla’s fight with Intellectual Ventures II split at FWD (one patent invalidated, two surviving). And on the patent-owner side, the discretionary weapon stays concentrated in specialist counsel: Fabricant LLP’s clients have posted a 100% denial rate across the recent tracker window.
Treat the discretionary-denial brief – due within two months of the filing-date notice – as the real deadline, and file any Sotera stipulation early. If your parallel case sits in a fast venue, lead with trial-date evidence and a stay posture, not just the merits.
Your discretionary request is your one shot – arguments left out are waived. For long-held patents, build the settled-expectations and awareness timeline early; June confirmed it can carry a denial even when Fintiv points the other way.
For a defendant facing a fast-venue assertion, GreyB maps the Fintiv and settled-expectations exposure against the projected FWD date, audits the petition for claim-mapping and motivation-to-combine gaps before filing, and profiles opposing counsel’s discretionary-denial record. And as the validity fight migrates to re-examination, we are extending our tracker to cover it – ask for an early look.
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