By Blake Brittain
WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) – The US Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a challenge by Alphabet's Google to a US Patent and Trademark Office rule that the company argued has insulated older patents from validity reviews and helped fuel a surge in patent litigation.
The justices turned away Google's appeal of a lower court's decision not to force the agency to reconsider, without using its "settled expectations" rule, the company's challenge to the validity of a patent held by software company VirtaMove. VirtaMove accused Google of infringing the patent.
Google asked the Supreme Court to review the "settled expectations" policy, under which the patent office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board, or PTAB, became more likely to reject requests to review patents that have been in force for more than six years.
Technology companies often use the board's "inter partes review" process to try to cancel patents that they are accused of infringing. The three most active board petitioners between 2020 and 2025 were Samsung, Apple and Alphabet, according to a report from IP company Patexia.
The USPTO during President Donald Trump's administration has introduced measures that have decreased the percentage of reviews the board takes up.
That figure fell to 37% in 2026 under John Squires, the Trump appointee who heads the patent office, compared to 65% under his predecessor Kathi Vidal, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, according to an April report from the agency.
The patent office outlined in a memo last year several factors that favor rejecting an inter partes review petition, which the agency has used to deny review for patents that are more than six years old based on the "settled expectations" of the parties.
The patent office cited the "settled expectations" rule in rejecting Google's review petition in 2025 concerning the VirtaMove patent involving server software. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled against Google's appeal of the patent office rejection.
Google told the justices in a filing that the rule exceeds the patent office's authority by creating an artificial time limit for board petitions.
"The PTO (Patent and Trademark Office) has no authority to create a limitations period where Congress did not, and it has no authority to expand patent rights beyond what Congress provided," Google said in the filing.
The Trump administration urged the court not to hear Google's appeal.
A group of companies including Google, Apple and Intel has filed a separate lawsuit challenging a related patent office policy. The Federal Circuit ruled against the companies in February, and Intel and Google have also asked the Supreme Court to hear that case.
(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)
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