US Supreme Court Rejects Google Challenge to Patent Agency Review Policy

The US Supreme Court has declined to hear Google's challenge to a Patent and Trademark Office policy that can make it more difficult to secure administrative reviews of older patents.

The justices rejected Google's petition without comment, leaving in place a lower court decision concerning the USPTO's controversial "settled expectations" policy.

The policy is used when deciding whether to institute inter partes review proceedings, which allow companies accused of patent infringement to challenge the validity of patents before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Under the approach, the age of a patent can weigh against granting a review where the patent owner has developed settled expectations surrounding its patent rights.

The USPTO has used the policy to deny review of patents that have been in force for more than six years, although six years does not operate as an automatic statutory cut-off.

Google argued that the agency had effectively created an artificial time limit for patent challenges that Congress never authorised.

The dispute arose from Google's attempt to challenge the validity of a patent held by software company VirtaMove.

VirtaMove has accused Google of infringing the patent, which concerns server software.

Google petitioned the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to review the patent's validity, but the agency rejected the request in 2025 after applying its settled expectations policy.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit subsequently ruled against Google's challenge to the agency's decision.

Google then asked the Supreme Court to intervene, arguing that the USPTO had exceeded its statutory authority by using patent age as a reason to refuse review.

The company argued that Congress had established the framework governing inter partes review and had not authorised the agency to create an additional limitation based on how long a patent had been in force.

The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court not to hear Google's appeal.

By declining to take the case, the Supreme Court leaves the Federal Circuit's decision and the USPTO's current approach undisturbed.

The decision does not, however, amount to a Supreme Court endorsement of the settled expectations policy or a ruling that Google's arguments against it were incorrect.

A denial of a petition for certiorari does not decide the merits of the underlying legal dispute.

The controversy has broader significance because inter partes review has become an important tool for technology companies defending patent infringement litigation.

Created under the America Invents Act, the process allows parties to ask the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to reconsider the validity of patent claims previously granted by the USPTO.

Large technology companies are among the most frequent users of the procedure.

Samsung, Apple and Google's parent company Alphabet were the three most active petitioners before the board between 2020 and 2025, according to data from intellectual property research company Patexia cited by Reuters.

Changes at the USPTO have made reviews less likely to be instituted.

The proportion of petitions accepted for review fell to 37% in 2026 under USPTO Director John Squires, compared with 65% under his predecessor Kathi Vidal, according to agency figures cited by Reuters.

The patent office outlined several factors last year that can favour denying an inter partes review petition, including the settled expectations of patent owners.

Google argued that the USPTO had no authority to create what it characterised as an additional limitations period where Congress had not established one.

The Supreme Court's decision does not end the wider dispute over the extent of the patent office's discretion.

Google, Apple and Intel are among companies involved in a separate challenge to a related USPTO policy governing when the Patent Trial and Appeal Board can decline patent reviews.

The Federal Circuit rejected that challenge in February. Google and Intel have also asked the Supreme Court to review that dispute.

The latest decision therefore leaves the settled expectations policy in place while broader litigation over the scope of the USPTO's authority continues.

For companies regularly defending patent infringement lawsuits, the continuing disputes could affect how readily they can use administrative proceedings to challenge patents outside the federal court system.