Institutions fell further than petitions did
Monthly counts
Institutions are counted in the month decided, so the two lines are different cohorts, not a rate: the median instituted petition waited days for its decision. Download CSV
Patent politics
The graphs and data below are drawn from a work-in-progress with Colleen Chien and Tejas Narechania, which explores the impact of recent administrative changes at the Patent Trial & Appeal Board.
Updated
Discretionary denial became the most common outcome
IPR institution decisions by month and outcome
Outcome and denial basis are read from each institution decision document. Instituted includes joinders; discretionary denial includes Director decisions reversing an earlier grant. Only the Director’s denials record their basis, so other denials include the Board’s discretionary denials before mid-2025. Download CSV
Institution fell in every technology field
Share of IPR institution decisions instituted, before and after the 2025 change, by technology of the challenged patent
Fields are WIPO’s 35 technology fields, applied to each patent’s current CPC codes. A patent in several fields is split equally among them, so decision counts are fractional. Fields with at least 10 decisions in each period are shown. March–May 2025, the transition, is excluded. Download CSV
IPR petitions fell as reexamination requests rose
Monthly filings
Utility patents only. Reexamination requests are shown through ; later months are held back until they are confirmed complete. Download CSV
New civil filings: patent cases and all other civil
Monthly, indexed to January 2022 = 100. Lines are local (loess) fits; dots are monthly values.
FJC Integrated Database, original proceedings, through . All other civil excludes immigration-detention habeas petitions (nature of suit 463). Download CSV
Patent plaintiffs have moved between courts
New patent cases per year, by district of filing
FJC Integrated Database, natures of suit 830 and 835, original proceedings through ; transferred cases count where first filed. Dotted lines mark TC Heartland (May 2017), which limited where patent suits may be filed, and the July 2022 order randomly assigning new W.D. Tex. patent cases across the district. A year still in progress is shown at an annual rate, dashed. The 2012–13 surge follows the America Invents Act’s joinder rule, which split multi-defendant suits into separate cases. Download CSV
Patent filings by district since 2024
Monthly. Lines are local (loess) fits over about 12 months; dots are monthly values.
Same source and definitions as above, through . The latest months rest on data from one side only, so the end of each line is the least certain part. Download CSV
About the data
The data are drawn from the USPTO Open Data Portal, CourtListener, and the FJC database. Petitions and reexamination requests are counted by filing date, institution decisions by decision date.
Each series ends at the last complete month the source is trusted to report in full, so the figures are subject to change over time.