PTAB (United States Patent and Trademark Office)

I'll verify the PTAB's current profile and statistics before drafting.

Now let me verify the PTAB's leadership, structure, and check the tracked cases.

Let me check the second tracked case and the latest 2026 developments.

PTAB — U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (USPTO)

Overview. The PTAB is not an Article III district court but an administrative tribunal inside the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, with judges also sitting at USPTO regional offices (Dallas, Denver, Detroit, San Jose). It has two dockets: ex parte appeals from examiner rejections, and America Invents Act post-grant trials — inter partes review (IPR), post-grant review (PGR), and (historically) covered business method review. Appeals go directly to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, not a regional circuit. In FY2025 (Oct. 1, 2024–Sept. 30, 2025) the Board received 1,433 AIA petitions (95% IPR, 5% PGR) and carried roughly 5,479 ex parte appeals, issuing 937 institution decisions and 387 final written decisions (USPTO PTAB Trial Statistics FY25; Rothwell Figg, Trial Statistics Trends at the PTAB: 2025 Edition, Jan. 2026). Volume has fallen sharply since: FY2026 through Q3 saw 395 AIA petitions, and first-half 2026 filings (201) were down about 72.5% against first-half 2025 (732) (USPTO Trial Statistics, June 2026; Unified Patents H1 2026 reporting, as summarized by ReexamLink, Sept. 2, 2026). Note that the two cases this site tracks are a very thin slice of that docket and should not be read as representative.

Docket reputation. "Rocket docket" translates poorly here — PTAB practice is governed by statutory clocks rather than a district's trial-setting culture: an institution decision is due within six months of the petition (35 U.S.C. §314(b)) and a final written decision within twelve months of institution, extendable to eighteen months for good cause (§316(a)(11)). That speed is precisely why district courts field stay motions. The Board's historical reputation was strongly challenger-favorable — FY2024 institution rates ran about 68%, and cumulative cancellation rates in final written decisions have run near 74% of instituted claims, with motions to amend granted on only ~15.5% of proposed substitute claims through April 2025 (Finnegan, At the PTAB). That has reversed dramatically under the current Director: institution fell from ~68% in Q1 2025 to ~42% in Q2 and ~23% in Q3 (RPX, Oct. 22, 2025); one account reported roughly 4% institution (101 of 105 petitions denied) through early December 2025 (Lexology/China Law Insight, Dec. 31, 2025), while former Deputy Chief APJ Jacqueline Wright Bonilla put post-Oct. 20, 2025 outcomes at ~50% discretionary denials, 5% merits denials, 35% referred to panels, and 11% instituted (Steptoe, PTAB Master 2026). Effective institution for FY2026 through Q3 was ~38% (314 of 823 decided), with about three in five petitions never reaching a merits look. These figures vary by source and denominator; treat any single headline number with caution. There are no juries or bench trials in the Article III sense: three-APJ panels decide on the papers plus a live oral hearing, party testimony comes in by declaration rather than in-court examination, and remedies are limited to claim cancellation — no infringement, damages, or injunctive relief, and IPR grounds are confined to §§102/103 over patents and printed publications.

Local rules and procedures. The operative "local rules" are 37 C.F.R. Part 42, the Consolidated Trial Practice Guide, and the Board's Standard Operating Procedures (SOP 1 on panel assignment, SOP 2 on precedential decisions, SOP 4 on panel rehearing). Instead of transfer practice, the Board applies discretionary-denial doctrine: §314(a)/§325(d) (the NHK-Fintiv line, General Plastic, Becton Dickinson), the §315(b) one-year bar from service of an infringement complaint, §315(e) estoppel, and the RPI/privity rules. The governing policy framework has changed repeatedly: Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart rescinded the 2022 Vidal Fintiv guidance on Feb. 28, 2025 and installed a bifurcated process (Director decides discretion first, panel reaches merits only if the petition clears that hurdle); she added a controversial "settled expectations" factor keyed to patent age, plus a March 11, 2026 factor weighing domestic manufacturing. Director John Squires, confirmed Sept. 18, 2025, then took personal control of all institution decisions via an Oct. 17, 2025 memorandum, issuing summary notices after consulting at least three PTAB judges. Practitioner commentary has flagged reduced transparency and the practical difficulty of seeking rehearing against unreasoned denials (Irwin IP, PTAB Year in Review: A Tumultuous 2025; IPWatchdog, Dec. 28, 2025).

Notable tracked cases and rulings. Both tracked matters are IPRs against the same patent owner and patent — U.S. Patent No. 11,058,757 (pneumococcal conjugate vaccine compositions), asserted by Pogona, LLC against Merck's Capvaxive in Pogona, LLC v. Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, No. 2:25-cv-15294 (D.N.J., filed Sept. 5, 2025, assigned to Judge Brian R. Martinotti). Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC v. Pogona LLC (IPR2026-00221, filed Jan. 26, 2026) was terminated May 19, 2026 with a discretionary denial — the tracked "Not Instituted – Procedural" status. The record shows Merck filed a Sotera stipulation on Mar. 23, 2026, agreeing to forgo in New Jersey any invalidity ground raised or that could reasonably have been raised in the IPR; under the post-February 2025 regime that stipulation is "highly relevant but not dispositive," and denials have increased notwithstanding such stipulations. Merck filed a second petition on the same patent (IPR2026-00374, June 1, 2026). I could not verify specific filings for Unified Patents v. Pogona LLC beyond its pending status; Unified Patents is a frequent defensive-aggregator petitioner, so a parallel challenge to the same patent family is unremarkable. More broadly, the Federal Circuit remains highly deferential to the Board: cumulatively through Nov. 30, 2025 it had decided 1,531 IPR/PGR/CBM appeals, affirming every issue in 74.7%, reversing or vacating every issue in 12.1%, with mixed outcomes in 10.1% and Rule 36 affirmances in 41.4% (Finnegan, Federal Circuit PTAB Appeal Statistics, Dec. 30, 2025). Mandamus challenges to the Director's institution policies were reportedly pending at the Federal Circuit in 2025 without success.

Judges. The PTAB bench consists of administrative patent judges organized into three-judge panels by Technology Center; institution decisions are currently made by the Director rather than panels. Reliably sourced names relevant here: John Squires, USPTO Director (confirmed Sept. 18, 2025), who now personally decides IPR/PGR institution; Coke Morgan Stewart, formerly Acting Director and now Deputy Director, architect of the 2025 discretionary-denial expansion; Kalyan Deshpande, listed as Acting Chief Administrative Patent Judge in January 2026 and as Chief Administrative Patent Judge in a June 2026 USPTO presentation, previously Acting Deputy Chief APJ; and James B. Clark III, listed on the panel docket for the Merck v. Pogona IPR (aggregator-sourced — treat the assignment as provisional). Scott Boalick, a prior Chief APJ, circulated the July 29, 2025 "Final Written Decision Procedures for AIA Trial Proceedings" memorandum. I found no published Lex Machina, Unified Patents, or Reuters analysis characterizing individual PTAB judges as plaintiff- or defendant-friendly, so no such characterization is offered.

Sources: USPTO PTAB Trial Statistics (FY25 roundup; Dec. 2025; June 2026); USPTO/JPO presentation (June 16, 2026); 35 U.S.C. §§314–316, 325; 37 C.F.R. Part 42; PTAB Consolidated Trial Practice Guide and SOPs 1/2/4; RPX Data Bytes (Oct. 22, 2025; Jan. 21, 2026; Q1 2026 in Review); Finnegan At the PTAB blog (Federal Circuit appeal statistics; FWD statistics); Rothwell Figg PTAB Law Blog; Irwin IP, PTAB Year in Review: A Tumultuous 2025; Steptoe PTAB Master 2026; Lexology/China Law Insight (Dec. 31, 2025); IPWatchdog (Dec. 28, 2025; May 29, 2026); ReexamLink (Sept. 2, 2026); PTAB/PTAB Bar Association program materials; RPX Empower and third-party docket aggregators for IPR2026-00221, IPR2026-00374, and D.N.J. 2:25-cv-15294.