USPTO Director John Squires on March 30, 2026, vacated seven inter partes review (IPR) petitions filed by TikTok against patents held by California-based Cellspin Soft. Squires determined that TikTok failed to demonstrate that Chinese government entities were not real parties-in-interest in the proceedings, and dismissed all seven petitions under the precedent established in Tianma Microelectronics Co., Ltd. v. LG Display Co., Ltd.
The IPR mechanism operates under 35 U.S.C. § 311(a), which permits only a “person” to file a petition challenging the validity of a granted patent before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). In 2019, the Supreme Court held in Return Mail, Inc. v. United States Postal Service that federal government entities do not qualify as a “person” under that provision and therefore lack standing to petition for IPR. PTAB subsequently extended that reasoning in Tianma Microelectronics, concluding that the same ineligibility applies to foreign government entities—specifically, that Chinese state-owned enterprises cannot serve as real parties-in-interest in IPR proceedings.
Director Squires applied the Tianma precedent directly to TikTok’s situation. The dispositive issue was TikTok’s failure to satisfy its burden of establishing that Chinese governmental entities were not real parties-in-interest. TikTok’s parent company ByteDance Ltd. (北京字節跳動科技有限公司) is headquartered in China, and the Chinese Communist Party’s “golden share” mechanism—granting the government indirect structural influence over private companies—has been repeatedly cited by U.S. legislators and executive branch officials as a source of concern. The USPTO Director’s decision rests on procedural grounds rather than a political judgment: TikTok did not meet the evidentiary standard required to clear the real-party-in-interest threshold.
The seven IPRs targeted Cellspin Soft’s patent portfolio covering wireless media capture and distribution technology. Cellspin Soft has previously asserted these patents against a range of technology companies through district court litigation. TikTok had sought to use the IPR process to challenge the validity of those patents before PTAB. With all seven petitions vacated, Cellspin Soft’s asserted patents remain in force, and TikTok is left without the PTAB forum as a vehicle for challenging them.
The decision represents a concrete instance of U.S.-China geopolitical tensions intersecting with the administration of IP law. The Return Mail rule was originally conceived with U.S. government agencies in mind. Tianma expanded that rule’s reach to foreign governmental entities, and the Squires decision confirms that the same logic applies to Chinese private companies with structural ties to state actors. For practitioners, the practical implication is that Chinese-based entities seeking to file IPR petitions must now affirmatively demonstrate the independence of their corporate ownership and governance from state influence—a burden that may prove difficult to satisfy given the opacity of certain governmental shareholding arrangements.
The USPTO Director’s authority to vacate petitions at the threshold stage—before institution and full merits review—provides a mechanism for early exclusion of structurally ineligible petitioners. Given the frequency with which Chinese technology companies have used IPRs to challenge U.S. patents in commercial disputes, the ruling is likely to generate further scrutiny of the real-party-in-interest question in future filings. IP counsel advising Chinese technology clients with government-linked ownership structures should anticipate heightened disclosure obligations and prepare detailed corporate governance representations at the petition stage.
Whether TikTok will seek review of the vacatur order—or whether additional legislative action will clarify the statutory scope of “person” in the IPR context—remains to be seen. In the interim, the decision adds a significant procedural constraint to the already complex landscape of patent litigation strategy for China-based market participants operating in the United States.
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