USPTO Extends Director Review Deadline for Institution Decisions From 14 to 30 Days, and Opens the Door to “Changed Circumstances” Terminations

On June 29, 2026, the USPTO announced that it has waived 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d) and extended the deadline for filing a request for Director Review of a decision instituting an IPR or PGR trial from 14 days to 30 days. The vehicle for the change is a recent precedential order in Light & Wonder, Inc. v. Evolution Malta Ltd., IPR2025-01072, -01073, -01078, Paper 30 (Director June 22, 2026). This is a significant procedural development for anyone practicing before the PTAB, and it is worth unpacking both what changed and why.

What Changed

Prior to this order, the timelines for seeking Director Review were mismatched depending on the type of decision under review:

• Institution decisions: 14 days under 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d)
• Final written decisions and decisions denying institution: 30 days

That asymmetry is now gone. Requests for Director Review of a decision granting institution are on the same 30-day clock. As a practical matter, this gives petitioners and patent owners more runway to evaluate an institution decision, coordinate with parallel litigation counsel, and decide whether Director Review is worth pursuing, without the compressed two-week windowto request Director Review.

The Bigger Story: “Exceptional Circumstances” Extensions

The deadline change is the headline, but the more consequential part of the order is what comes next. The Director held that in “exceptional circumstances,” the Office may extend the deadline for seeking Director Review of an institution decision even further, so long as the trial has not progressed meaningfully. The order identifies three exemplary exceptional circumstances:

1. Dismissal of all, or substantially all, claims in a co-pending litigation
2. Findings of fact and conclusions of law in litigation that render all, or substantially all, of the challenged claims invalid
3. A violation of a Sotera stipulation

This gives the Director a mechanism to revisit an institution decision based on events that happen after the PTAB has already instituted trial and after the ordinary Director Review deadline has run. Before this order, a patent owner in that position had limited options. A motion to terminate before the Board was not necessarily grantable, because the Board itself lacks authority to act on some of these grounds, and sua sponte Director Review was the only other avenue, which the Director himself described in the order as inefficient given how the process is initiated.

Why the Director Did This: The Facts of Light & Wonder

The order grew out of a procedural dead end in the underlying case. The Board instituted three IPRs in three related proceedings. After institution, the district court in the parallel litigation between the same parties ultimately granted the petitioner’s motion to dismiss with prejudice, finding the challenged claims invalid as directed to patent ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. That ruling issued after the 14 day Director Review deadline for the institution decision had already expired, and after the patent owner response and petitioner’s opposition thereto had been exchanged.

The patent owner, Evolution Malta, moved to terminate the IPRs based on the district court’s invalidity finding. The Board denied that motion, correctly reasoning it lacked authority to grant it. Evolution Malta then emailed the Director’s office asking how to seek Director Review of the denial, since a denial of a motion to terminate is not one of the categories of decision that Director Review ordinarily reaches. The Director treated this as an opportunity to address the gap directly: he waived the 14 day deadline, applied the newly announced 30 day deadline (and the “exceptional circumstances” exception) to the facts at hand, and then, applying Hulu, LLC v. Piranha Media Distribution, LLC, IPR2024-01252, Paper 27 (Director Apr. 17, 2025), vacated institution and terminated the three IPRs. His rationale: with all challenged claims invalidated in litigation and the trial not having meaningfully progressed, it would be inefficient to keep the IPRs alive.  Interestingly, the Director focused primarily on efforts the Board had not yet taken, and discounted meaningful progress by the parties (i.e., patent owner response and opposition).

Practical Takeaways for Practitioners

A few points are worth flagging for active or prospective PTAB practitioners:

• The 30 day clock is now the operative deadline for Director review of institution decisions across the board. The 14 day rule in 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d) has been superseded.
• This is a real, additional avenue for terminating an instituted proceeding based on litigation developments. If you represent a patent owner with a co-pending district court case, and that case produces a plausible reason for terminating a co-pending IPR, such as for example an invalidity ruling, a dismissal with prejudice of substantially all claims, or evidence of a Sotera stipulation violation, after an adverse institution decision, this order and decision are now your citable basis for asking the Director to revisit institution outside the ordinary window, provided the IPR trial has not progressed meaningfully.
• “Has not progressed meaningfully” is not yet well defined. The order does not set out a bright line test for what counts as meaningful progression. Expect this to be litigated in subsequent Director Review requests, and expect the Office to develop the standard through case by case application rather than further rulemaking in the near term.
• Petitioners should watch parallel litigation outcomes even after institution issues. Historically, once an IPR was instituted, a petitioner with a strong invalidity position in parallel litigation could treat the institution decision as largely settled. That is no longer true. Developments in litigation (assuming it is not stayed), or an adverse Sotera-related development, can now be brought back to the Director’s attention well after the old 14-day window would have closed the door.
• This is a sua sponte, precedential order, not a rule change through notice-and-comment rulemaking. The Director is proceeding by waiver of the existing regulation under his authority in 37 C.F.R. § 42.5(b), designated precedential, rather than through formal amendment of the CFR. Practitioners should expect this approach, waiver plus precedential designation, to remain the primary tool this Director uses to adjust PTAB procedure, consistent with his pattern in other recent precedential and informative decisions this year.

Bottom Line

The 14- to 30-day extension is straightforward. The more important development is the Director's willingness to revisit institution decisions based on later developments in parallel proceedings. Parties on both sides of instituted IPRs should factor this into their litigation coordination strategy going forward, and patent owners in particular should treat an adverse institution decision as less final than it may have appeared under the old regime.

Light & Wonder, Inc. v. Evolution Malta Ltd., IPR2025-01072, -01073, -01078, Paper 30 (Director June 22, 2026) (precedential).

The authors are patent trial lawyers and members of the Intellectual Property Litigation Group at Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth LLP. Stradling represents inventors, patent owners, and technology companies in patent licensing and litigation in U.S. District Courts and before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, including IPRs and EPRs pending before the PTAB. Whether pursuing patent violations or defending infringement claims, we are aggressive and effective advocates for our clients. For more information contact Greg Cordrey at 949-725-4151 or gcordrey@stradlinglaw.com or Henning Schmidt at 512-788-5018 or hschmidt@stradlinglaw.com.