Supreme Court declines to review Google’s challenge to USPTO “settled expectations” rule

Alphabet’s Google sought Supreme Court review of the USPTO’s “settled expectations” policy, which makes the Patent Trial and Appeal Board more likely to refuse inter partes review requests for patents older than six years. The Court declined to take the case, upholding a lower-court decision that refused to compel the agency to revisit the rule. The disputed policy was applied to Google’s challenge to a VirtaMove server-software patent that the company was accused of infringing.

Under the Trump administration, the USPTO’s review acceptance rate fell to 37 percent in 2026, down from 65 percent under the prior administration. Major tech firms such as Samsung, Apple and Alphabet have been the most frequent petitioners to the board, while a separate lawsuit by Google, Apple and Intel against a related USPTO policy also remains unresolved.