- within Intellectual Property topic(s)
John A. Squires was officially confirmed by the US Senate to be the next under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on September 18, 2025.1 Director Squires brings decades of experience in both private practice and corporate settings. As the chief executive and public face of the US patent and trademark system, Director Squires signals the institutional priorities of the USPTO through patent-signing ceremonies, public appearances and statements, and even guidance to examiners.2 All signals point to Director Squires having a particular interest in reforming the area of Section 101 patent eligibility.
During Director Squires' May 2025 Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, Sen. Thom Tillis specifically asked him for his thoughts on Section 101 patent eligibility reform and whether such reform was needed now.
In response, Director Squires acknowledged that Section 101 suffers from clarity of precedent and sows confusion and uncertainty into our patent system.3 He stated that uncertainty "clouds patents, erodes confidence in our system, and is leading to a lack of American competitiveness particularly in AI and critical emerging technologies."4 He also committed to working with Congress and the committee to ensure that patent law "meet[s] the moment" and serves both inventors and the nation.5
1. Director Squires' Early Moves: Signals Favoring More Flexible Section 101 Treatment for AI and Emerging Technologies
Within days of his confirmation and induction, Director Squires took assertive steps toward establishing a more patent-friendly posture on Section 101, particularly in emerging fields including artificial intelligence (AI), diagnostics, and blockchain.
On the first full business day after he was sworn in, Director Squires held a formal signing ceremony at the USPTO in which he signed two patents into issuance: one in the domain of distributed ledger and crypto technologies6and another in medical diagnostics.7
In his remarks, Director Squires stated:
From crypto and AI to quantum computing and diagnostics, the marketplace is filled with breathtaking opportunities for invention and investment.8
By highlighting AI, crypto, quantum computing, and diagnostics as "breathtaking opportunities," Director Squires' remarks point toward a more expansive, innovation-focused interpretation of patent eligibility, especially for emerging and data-driven technologies like AI.
Although patent signing ceremonies are itself not new, Director Squires' choice of technology domains, ones historically subject to intense Section 101 scrutiny, strongly suggests a deliberate signaling posture.
2. Director Squires' Potential Impact on the Landscape of Section 101 as It Relates to AI and Machine Learning
The impact that Director Squires will have on the patent eligibility of AI- and machine learning–based inventions remains to be seen; however, there are signs of a brewing showdown between the USPTO and the courts. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit staked out its position on the question of eligibility in AI and machine learning (ML) technologies in Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox Corp. earlier this year.9 In that decision, the court broadly announced that "claims that do no more than apply established methods of machine learning to a new data environment" are patent ineligible unless they also "disclos[e] improvements to the machine learning models to be applied." In Recentive's wake, courts continue to struggle to consistently apply Section 101 to AI- and ML-based inventions.
For example, in Longitude Licensing Ltd. v. Google LLC,10 the Federal Circuit extended its Recentive reasoning to conclude patent claims directed to the use of "data to identify an image's subject and modifying image data based on that subject" were ineligible. Although the patentee contended that the use of new data (i.e., the correspondence between main object data and correction conditions) represented a patent-eligible improvement, the Federal Circuit disagreed, concluding that the claim rather "describe[d] a mere concept without disclosing how to implement" it. In contrast, District Judge Gregory Williams — who presided over the Recentive case and granted the motion to dismiss — held the use of ML to detect overlays in images patent eligible. In Nielsen Co. (US), LLC v. HyphaMetrics, Inc.,11 the court reasoned that the patents provided an improvement to the technical field of image processing — in particular, improving the speed and reliability of detecting overlays. More recently, in All Terminal Services, LLC v. Roboflow, Inc.,12 relying on Recentive, Circuit Judge William Bryson held the use of ML algorithms to create a database using railyard image data to be abstract and patent ineligible. The All Terminal court reasoned that "the fact that positioning railcars can be more safely and cheaply executed with [...] machine learning algorithms does not convert the abstract idea into one that is patent eligible."
There have been signs — even within the first week of Director Squires' confirmation — that the new USPTO director views the issue of patentability in AI and ML inventions differently than the courts.
In particular, on September 26, 2025, days after he was confirmed by the Senate, Director Squires issued a major decision addressing the patent eligibility of claims directed to a method for training ML models, filed by Google's DeepMind Technologies. The decision was as unusual as it was significant. It was issued by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) Appeals Review Panel (ARP), a panel that was instituted in 2023 as a mechanism for the director to order — sua sponte — a review of PTAB decisions. In the two years since its creation, the ARP has only issued one other decision.
On the merits, the Appeals Review Panel vacated the PTAB's Section 101 rejection and ultimately found the pending claims to be directed to a technological improvement in the field of ML and, therefore, patent eligible. The ARP expressed concern with the PTAB's decision, characterizing it as "overbroad" and "troubling."
The claims at issue are directed to methods for training ML models on multiple sequential tasks while avoiding "catastrophic forgetting" — the phenomenon in which neural networks lose knowledge of previous tasks when trained on new ones.
In evaluating the asserted additional elements, the ARP relied on the Federal Circuit's opinions in Enfish and McRO.13 The ARP disagreed with the PTAB's finding that the claims were ineligible because they did not recite any additional elements that would bring the abstract idea into a practical application. The ARP found certain limitations provide "technical improvements over conventional systems by addressing challenges in continual learning and model efficiency by reducing storage requirements and preserving task performance across sequential training." In particular, the ARP referenced several statements in the specification that reflected an improvement to how the model itself operates — namely that the "training strategy allows the model to preserve performance on earlier tasks even as it learns new ones, directly addressing the technical problem of 'catastrophic forgetting' in continual learning systems."
Regarding improvements in training the ML model itself, the ARP found that the claimed improvement of "effectively learn[ing] new tasks in succession whilst protecting knowledge about previous tasks" allows AI systems to "us[e] less of their storage capacity" and enables "reduced system complexity."
The ARP decision is also significant for what it did not address. Namely, the ARP decision did not mention, let alone discuss, the Federal Circuit's decision in Recentive — the first and only Federal Circuit decision that actually addressed the issue of patentability in the fields of AI and ML. But even if the ARP did not mention Recentive by name, the USPTO, through its Ex Parte Desjardins decision, suggested it was concerned with Recentive's impact. The ARP decision concluded by issuing a warning — to the USPTO and those who practice before it — that "categorically excluding AI innovations from patent protection in the United States jeopardizes America's leadership in this critical emerging technology."
In an October 10, 2025, statement to the Senate Subcommittee on Intellectual Property Committee on the Judiciary, Director Squires reiterated his position that "Section 101 should not be misused as a blunt instrument to exclude entire technological fields."14 Director Squires cautioned that "artificial intelligence in particular illustrates the stakes: without reliable patent protection, AI start-ups cannot secure the venture capital needed to compete against state-backed giants in China and elsewhere. Eligibility is the difference between an ecosystem of American innovators and a future where leadership in AI is ceded abroad."15
In the near term, practitioners will have to continue grappling with the apparent different standards that the USPTO applies when issuing patents and those the courts apply when enforcing them. At a minimum, these decisions stress the importance of drafting AI and ML patents to state the technological improvement and specify the ML algorithm or data processing mechanism implemented.
Altogether, Director Squires' early actions suggest that the USPTO may be entering a more permissive phase under Section 101, particularly for AI, diagnostics, and other data-driven technologies that have historically faced eligibility challenges. While Director Squires cannot unilaterally change statute or binding court precedent, his leadership can influence (i) how strictly examiners apply internal guidelines (such as the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure) and (ii) whether internal review panels (e.g., ARP, supervisory overrides) will revisit contentious rejections.
Practical Takeaways
- The Ex Parte Desjardins decision underscores that claims directed to ML methods may be patent-eligible when they provide a specific technological improvement, rather than merely reciting abstract mathematical concepts or generic computer implementation.
- The Ex Parte Desjardins decision also highlights the continued relevance of sections 102, 103, and 112 as the primary statutory tools for assessing the scope and validity of patent claims, rather than relying on Section 101 to categorically exclude innovations in AI and ML.
- The broader significance of the recent Ex Parte Desjardins decision lies in the clear policy direction set by the USPTO's leadership regarding the patentability of AI and ML inventions.
- The legal landscape of AI and ML patents is still in flux. We expect to see further guidance emerge as the USPTO has signaled strong support for protecting AI and ML innovations through the patent system.
- Patent practitioners should seek to draft claims with multiple fallback positions to ensure that claims satisfy the seemingly different Section 101 standards applied by the USPTO and the courts.
Footnotes
1 See John A. Squires, U.S. Patent & Trademark Office,https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/john-squires (last updated Sept. 23, 2025).
2 Id.
3 John A. Squires, Responses to Questions for the Record (May 21, 2025), U.S. Senate Judiciary Comm., https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2025-05-21_qfrresponses_squires.pdf.
4 Id.
5 Id.
6 U.S. Patent No. 12,419,202.
7 U.S. Patent No. 12,419,201.
8 U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Patent Signing Ceremony (Sept. 24, 2025),https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/patent-signing-ceremony.
9 Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox Corp., 134 F.4th 1205, 1209 (Fed. Cir. 2025).
10 Longitude Licensing Ltd. v. Google LLC, No. 2024-1202 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 30, 2025).
11 Nielsen Co. (US), LLC v. HyphaMetrics, Inc., No. CV 23-136-GBW (D. Del. July 22, 2025).
12 All Terminal Services, LLC v. Roboflow, Inc., No. CV 25-476-WCB (D. Del. Sept. 5, 2025).
13 Enfish LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2016); McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games Am. Inc., 837 F.3d 1299, 1315 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
14 Statement by Director Squires before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Intellectual Property Committee on the Judiciary, United States Patent and Trademark Office (2025), available athttps://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/statement-director-squires-united-states-senate-subcommittee-intellectual (last accessed October 14, 2025).
15 Id.
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