Company Profile: John A. Squires, Director of the USPTO
Note: This is not a commercial enterprise. The tracked "defendant" is the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) named in his official capacity — currently John A. Squires, who serves as Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and USPTO Director. The USPTO is a federal agency headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, within the U.S. Department of Commerce. Squires was confirmed by the Senate on September 17, 2025, succeeding a series of acting directors. The agency operates at roughly a $5 billion annual budget with over 14,000 employees (per Commerce.gov and USPTO). It is neither an operating company nor a patent-assertion entity.
Operations: The USPTO is the federal office that examines and grants patents and registers trademarks. Squires' stated priorities include reducing the application backlog, improving examination quality (including AI-assisted search), broadening patent-eligibility standards under 35 U.S.C. § 101 (particularly for AI and software inventions), and restructuring PTAB discretionary-institution practice.
Litigation posture: The single tracked appearance — as defendant with zero plaintiff cases — reflects the Director's statutory role as a party/intervenor in Federal Circuit appeals of PTAB decisions, not any commercial litigation activity. The case is captioned against the officeholder, and the named individual has changed over the proceeding (Katherine Vidal at filing, then acting directors Brent and Stewart, then Squires).
Notable case: Manufacturing Resources International, Inc. v. John A. Squires (Fed. Cir., filed Aug. 16, 2024) — MRI appealed PTAB inter partes review decisions invalidating its electronic-display cooling patents ("constricted convection" claims) in IPRs petitioned by Samsung. The Federal Circuit affirmed in a nonprecedential Rule 36 judgment (April 15, 2026); MRI subsequently sought panel and en banc rehearing. Venue is the Federal Circuit, the exclusive forum for such appeals.