U.S. Constitution Article III set up the Federal court system of judges of the U.S. district courts, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Federal courts generally address questions where Federal laws or the Federal Constitution are involved or disputes between residents of different states. The Federal judges and Justices have lifetime tenure and are thus exempt from election and fund-raising pressure, leaving them free to call balls and strikes1 according to their personal biases and, occasionally, according to the law.
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s version of a court system. The PTAB is made up of administrative law judges who hears appeals from rejections of patent applications and also challenges to issued patents by third parties. If there was ever anyone naive enough to believe that the PTAB administrative law judges call balls and strikes, then those beliefs are now thoroughly crushed.
Prof. Dennis Crouch in his PatentlyO blog has statistically demonstrated that since his confirmation in September, 2025, USPTO Director John Squires has had a major impact on the decisions of the PTAB judges, particularly in the area of ‘patentable subject matter;’ that is, on the question of which inventions can be the subject of a patent. Director Squires favors an expansive definition of patentable subject matter (also favored by this author). Since September, the PTAB judges have decided cases on patentable subject matter in favor of the inventor at twice with rate of previous administrations, with some PTAB judges deciding almost all cases on patentable subject matter in favor of the inventor.
If there was ever any doubt, PTAB judges are employees of the USPTO and answer to Director Squires. The overriding function of the PTAB is to make sure that the day-to-day decisions of the patent examiners are in line with the policies of the Executive Branch. If you are involved in a dispute before the PTAB, either as an inventor or as someone accused of infringement, and you want a decision not directly controlled by the Administration, then you’ll have to appeal the PTAB decision to the Federal Courts before a genuine Federal judge.
That said, this author is in favor of patent rights, including restoring patentable subject matter rights hopelessly muddled by the U.S. Supreme Court in a series of decisions over the last fifteen years or so. This author fervently hopes that Director Squires and his boss, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, are able to cut the knot and restore sanity to the question of patentable subject matter.
1 As stated by (Now) U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. during his confirmation hearing, 2005
— Robert Yarbrough, Esq.