PTAB Section 101 Reversal Rate Has Doubled Under Director Squires, Seven Months of Data Confirm

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is reversing examiner rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 101 at roughly double the rate that prevailed before Director John Squires took office, and seven months of data now confirm the shift has settled into a new equilibrium. The finding comes from an analysis by Dennis Crouch, Professor at the University of Missouri School of Law, published April 23, 2026, on Patently-O.

Crouch initially reported a doubling of the § 101 reversal rate in January 2026, covering approximately the first twelve weeks of Squires’s tenure. That early finding raised the possibility of a short-run fluctuation. The updated analysis covers every ex parte PTAB decision issued between January 1, 2024 and April 22, 2026 that the USPTO Open Data Portal tags as addressing § 101, restricted to full merits decisions. The resulting corpus is 2,139 decisions, with 92 excluded for not reaching § 101 on the merits.

The Numbers: Reversal Rate Moved From 11.0% to 22.3%

On a within-judge basis, the mean reversal rate moved from 11.0 percent to 22.3 percent, a shift of 11.3 percentage points. This figure is slightly larger than the aggregate 11.07-point shift, ruling out panel-composition changes as the primary explanation. The reversal rate peaked at roughly 29 percent in November 2025 and has since settled near 20 percent.

Individual judge data reveal particularly sharp movements. Judge Khan moved from 0 percent reversal (n=7) pre-Squires to 80 percent (n=5) post-Squires. Judge Cutitta moved from 4 percent (n=24) to 80 percent (n=5). Judge Bennett moved from 0 percent (n=16) to 60 percent (n=5). Judge Engle moved from 15 percent (n=13) to 75 percent (n=4). Judge Shiang moved from 24 percent (n=21) to 83 percent (n=6). Judge Frahm, with a larger sample on both sides, moved from 9 percent (n=34) to 50 percent (n=16). The sample sizes for individual judges are small enough that no single figure should be read as precise, but the aggregate pattern across dozens of incumbent judges is robust.

Judge Murphy warrants separate mention. In Ex parte Mercer, Appeal 2024-002371 (PTAB Oct. 31, 2025), Murphy was substituted onto a reconstituted panel after the original panel had affirmed the examiner’s § 101 rejection in a detailed 24-page decision. Murphy then signed a two-page reversal finding insufficient support for the examiner’s conventionality determination under Berkheimer v. HP Inc., 881 F.3d 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2018). Across his post-Squires § 101 authorship, Murphy’s reversal rate is roughly 37 percentage points higher than his pre-Squires record.

Behavioral Change, Not Turnover

The 2025 Fork-in-the-Road (FORK) program and DOGE-related resignation offerings reduced PTAB headcount materially, and a fresh panel draw could plausibly have explained the movement. The data rules out turnover as the primary driver. The within-judge shift is 11.3 points, slightly larger than the overall aggregate shift, confirming that incumbent judges have changed their behavior rather than being replaced by judges with different inclinations.

Director Squires has not published a § 101 guidance memorandum. What he has done is designate the Appeals Review Panel decision in Ex parte Desjardins, Appeal 2024-000567 (PTAB Sept. 26, 2025), which was followed by a rise in skepticism toward examiner conventionality determinations under Berkheimer. The Director is both a member of the Board and its head, and the analysis suggests the recalibration has operated through that structural authority rather than through formal rulemaking.

Section 101 Specific; Other Grounds Show Minimal Change

Crouch examined whether the PTAB has become broadly more favorable to patent applicants. Other grounds show small movements, but nothing comparable to the § 101 change. Section 112 rejections moved in the opposite direction, consistent with a partial substitution effect noted in earlier work. The current 20 percent reversal rate on § 101 grounds, while elevated relative to the pre-Squires baseline, remains below the approximately 34 percent reversal rate on non-§ 101 grounds.

At the technology center level, TC3600 (business methods, e-commerce) continues to generate the highest volume of § 101 appeals and sees the highest sustained affirmance rates. TC2100 (computer architecture, software) and TC2700 (communications) recorded the largest absolute shifts in reversal rates since Squires took office.