Google lost its bid to have the Supreme Court review a rule from the US Patent and Trademark Office that makes patents older than six years harder to challenge, after the Trump administration asked the justices to stay out of the case. Under the “settled expectations” rule, the agency’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board has turned down review requests for older patents, including Google’s 2025 petition against a server software patent held by VirtaMove, which has accused Google of infringement. Google argued the agency had no authority to invent a time limit that Congress never wrote. When tech companies get sued for infringement, they often ask the board to cancel the patent, but the board agreed to hear just 37% of those requests in 2026, down from 65% under the Biden administration.
