A functioning patent system depends on one basic principle: bad patents must be challengeable. In 2025, that principle was repeatedly tested—by Congress, by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and by a small number of large patent owners determined to weaken public challenges. 

Two damaging bills, PERA and PREVAIL, were reintroduced in Congress. At the same time, USPTO attempted a sweeping rollback of inter partes review (IPR), one of the most important mechanisms for challenging wrongly granted patents. 

EFF pushed back—on Capitol Hill, inside the Patent Office, and alongside thousands of supporters who made their voices impossible to ignore.

Congress Weighed Bills That Would Undo Core Safeguards

The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act, or PERA, would overturn the Supreme Court’s Alice and Myriad decisions—reviving patents on abstract software ideas, and even allowing patents on isolated human genes. PREVAIL, introduced by the same main sponsors in Congress, would seriously weaken the IPR process by raising the burden of proof, limiting who can file challenges, forcing petitioners to surrender court defenses, and giving patent owners new ways to rewrite their claims mid-review.

Together, these bills would have dismantled much of the progress made over the last decade. 

We reminded Congress that abstract software patents—like those we’ve seen on online photo contests, upselling prompts, matchmaking, and scavenger hunts—are exactly the kind of junk claims patent trolls use to threaten creators and small developers. We also pointed out that if PREVAIL had been law in 2013, EFF could not have brought the IPR that crushed the so-called “podcasting patent.” 

EFF’s supporters amplified our message, sending thousands of messages to Congress urging lawmakers to reject these bills. The result: neither bill advanced to the full committee. The effort to rewrite patent law behind closed doors stalled out once public debate caught up with it. 

Patent Office Shifts To An “Era of No”

Congress’ push from the outside was stymied, at least for now. Unfortunately, what may prove far more effective is the push from within by new USPTO leadership, which is working to dismantle systems and safeguards that protect the public from the worst patents.

Early in the year, the Patent Office signaled it would once again lean more heavily on procedural denials, reviving an approach that allowed patent challenges to be thrown out basically whenever there was an ongoing court case involving the same patent. But the most consequential move came later: a sweeping proposal unveiled in October that would make IPR nearly unusable for those who need it most.

2025 also marked a sharp practical shift inside the agency. Newly appointed USPTO Director John Squires took personal control of IPR institution decisions, and rejected all 34 of the first IPR petitions that came across his desk. As one leading patent blog put it, an “era of no” has been ushered in at the Patent Office. 

The October Rulemaking: Making Bad Patents Untouchable

The USPTO’s proposed rule changes would: 

• Force defendants to surrender their court defenses if they use IPR—an intense burden for anyone actually facing a lawsuit. 
• Make patents effectively unchallengeable after a single prior dispute, even if that challenge was limited, incomplete, or years out of date.
• Block IPR entirely if a district court case is projected to move faster than the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). 

These changes wouldn’t “balance” the system as USPTO claims—they would make bad patents effectively untouchable. Patent trolls and aggressive licensors would be insulated, while the public would face higher costs and fewer options to fight back. 

We sounded the alarm on these proposed rules and asked supporters to register their opposition. More than 4,000 of you did—thank you! Overall, more than 11,000 comments were submitted. An analysis of the comments shows that stakeholders and the public overwhelmingly oppose the proposal, with 97% of comments weighing in against it. 

In those comments, small business owners described being hit with vague patents they could never afford to fight in court. Developers and open-source contributors explained that IPR is often the only realistic check on bad software patents. Leading academics, patient-advocacy groups, and major tech-community institutions echoed the same point: you cannot issue hundreds of thousands of patents a year and then block one of the only mechanisms that corrects the mistakes.

The Linux Foundation warned that the rules “would effectively remove IPRs as a viable mechanism” for developers.

GitHub emphasized the increased risk and litigation cost for open-source communities.

Twenty-two patent law professors called the proposal unlawful and harmful to innovation.

Patients for Affordable Drugs detailed the real-world impact of striking invalid pharmaceutical patents, showing that drug prices can plummet once junk patents are removed.

Heading Into 2026

The USPTO now faces thousands of substantive comments. Whether the agency backs off or tries to push ahead, EFF will stay engaged. Congress may also revisit PERA, PREVAIL, or similar proposals next year. Some patent owners will continue to push for rules that shield low-quality patents from any meaningful review.

But 2025 proved something important: When people understand how patent abuse affects developers, small businesses, patients, and creators, they show up—and when they do, their actions can shape what happens next. 

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.

A massive wave of public comments just told the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO): don’t shut the public out of patent review.

EFF submitted its own formal comment opposing the USPTO’s proposed rules, and more than 4,000 supporters added their voices—an extraordinary response for a technical, fast-moving rulemaking. We comprised more than one-third of the 11,442 comments submitted. The message is unmistakable: the public wants a meaningful way to challenge bad patents, and the USPTO should not take that away.

The Public Doesn’t Want To Bury Patent Challenges

These thousands of submissions do more than express frustration. They demonstrate overwhelming public interest in preserving inter partes review (IPR), and undermine any broad claim that the USPTO’s proposal reflects public sentiment. 

Comments opposing the rulemaking include many small business owners who have been wrongly accused of patent infringement, by both patent trolls and patent-abusing competitors. They also include computer science experts, law professors, and everyday technology users who are simply tired of patent extortion—abusive assertions of low-quality patents—and the harm it inflicts on their work, their lives, and the broader U.S. economy. 

The USPTO exists to serve the public. The volume and clarity of this response make that expectation impossible to ignore.

EFF’s Comment To USPTO

In our filing, we explained that the proposed rules would make it significantly harder for the public to challenge weak patents. That undercuts the very purpose of IPR. The proposed rules would pressure defendants to give up core legal defenses, allow early or incomplete decisions to block all future challenges, and create new opportunities for patent owners to game timing and shut down PTAB review entirely.

Congress created IPR to allow the Patent Office to correct its own mistakes in a fair, fast, expert forum. These changes would take the system backward. 

A Broad Coalition Supports IPR

A wide range of groups told the USPTO the same thing: don’t cut off access to IPR.

Open Source and Developer Communities 

The Linux Foundation submitted comments and warned that the proposed rules “would effectively remove IPRs as a viable mechanism for challenges to patent validity,” harming open-source developers and the users that rely on them. Github wrote that the USPTO proposal would increase “litigation risk and costs for developers, startups, and open source projects.” And dozens of individual software developers described how bad patents have burdened their work. 

Patent Law Scholars

A group of 22 patent law professors from universities across the country said the proposed rule changes “would violate the law, increase the cost of innovation, and harm the quality of patents.” 

Patient Advocates

Patients for Affordable Drugs warned in their filing that IPR is critical for invalidating wrongly granted pharmaceutical patents. When such patents are invalidated, studies have shown “cardiovascular medications have fallen 97% in price, cancer drugs dropping 80-98%, and treatments for opioid addiction becom[e] 50% more affordable.” In addition, “these cases involved patents that had evaded meaningful scrutiny in district court.” 

Small Businesses 

Hundreds of small businesses weighed in with a consistent message: these proposed rules would hit them hardest. Owners and engineers described being targeted with vague or overbroad patents they cannot afford to litigate in court, explaining that IPR is often the only realistic way for a small firm to defend itself. The proposed rules would leave them with an impossible choice—pay a patent troll, or spend money they don’t have fighting in federal court. 

What Happens Next

The USPTO now has thousands of comments to review. It should listen. Public participation must be more than a box-checking exercise. It is central to how administrative rulemaking is supposed to work.

Congress created IPR so the public could help correct bad patents without spending millions of dollars in federal court. People across technical, academic, and patient-advocacy communities just reminded the agency why that matters. 

We hope the USPTO reconsiders these proposed rules. Whatever happens, EFF will remain engaged and continue fighting to preserve  the public’s ability to challenge bad patents.