Jacqueline Wright Bonilla

On June 15, 2026, USPTO Director John Squires issued, and designated informative, a decision declining to discretionarily deny institution of a series of seven inter partes review (IPR) petitions filed by Tesla, Inc. See Tesla, Inc. v. Bulletproof Property Mgmt., LLC, IPR2026-00204, etc., Paper 14 (Squires June 15, 2026) (informative) (“Tesla”). Tesla is worth reading because it provides at least one case study of how to avoid discretionary denial of institution of an IPR by the Director.

This article follows Part I and Part II on the new patent owner pre-grant paper procedure. The USPTO’s new pre-order patent owner submission appears to be more than a procedural adjustment. In early filings, it is already beginning to function as a focused front-end advocacy tool for patent owners—one that may affect how both patent owners and requesters approach the threshold substantial new question (SNQ) inquiry.

In the mid-2000s, the U.S. Patent Office (USPTO) determined that reexaminations would be more consistent and legally correct if performed by a centralized set of experienced and specially trained Examiners. As a result, the USPTO formed the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) and staffed it with 15 year+ Examiners and legal experts. Later, after the loss of Inter Partes Reexamination in 2012, the USPTO added all newly filed reissue applications to the CRU Examiner’s regime.