PTAB Petitions Plummeted in First Quarter as USPTO Continued to Limit AIA Review

Over the past year, the USPTO has made series of changes that have significantly limited the availability of America Invents Act (AIA) review. On February 28, 2025, then-Acting USPTO Director Coke Morgan Stewart withdrew a 2022 guidance issued by former Director Kathi Vidal that had limited discretionary denials under the NHK-Fintiv rule. On March 26, Stewart next established an interim bifurcated process in which she would evaluate requests for discretionary denials herself, and would refer petitions not denied on that basis to panels for consideration of the merits.

Then, on October 17, USPTO Director John Squires announced that effective on October 20, he would now handle the entire AIA review institution process, including both discretionary denials and the merits/nondiscretionary factors—making those determinations with no accompanying written decisions in most cases.

One notable result of these changes has been a marked downturn in the number of petitions filed: The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw just 131 petitions for AIA review in the first quarter of 2026, including 117 petitions for inter partes review (IPR) and 14 petitions for post-grant review (PGR)—marking the third-lowest full quarter since the PTAB’s launch in September 2012, following another sizable downturn in Q4 (the PTAB’s fourth-lowest full quarter). Filings in Q1 2026 were also 64% lower than in Q1 2025, which saw 366 petitions filed.

See RPX’s first-quarter review for more on the impact of these changes on the PTAB—and for coverage on other key trends that shaped patent litigation risk in Q1.