by Dennis Crouch

FedEx has asked the Supreme Court to decide whether any court can make the Patent Office follow 35 U.S.C. § 312(a)(2), the requirement that an IPR petitioner identify "all real parties in interest." The petition in Federal Express Corp. v. Qualcomm Inc., No. 26-170, seeks review of the Federal Circuit's precedential decision in Federal Express Corp. v. Qualcomm Inc., 174 F.4th 910 (Fed. Cir. 2026), where Judge Hughes wrote for a panel including Judges Cunningham and Stark. The Board in that case refused to decide whether Qualcomm's IPR petitions had named all real parties in interest, then went ahead and cancelled claims. The Federal Circuit held the refusal unreviewable because a challenge grounded in § 312(a)(2) "boils down to a challenge over whether there should have been institution at all."

Director Squires has reversed the underlying policy, but still argued that it was unreviewable on appeal.

This is the fifth petition now pending on the reach of § 314(d), and the first from the patent owner's side of the table. Google LLC v. VirtaMove, Corp., No. 25-1230, Intel Corp. v. Squires, No. 26-73, Tesla, Inc. v. Granite Vehicle Ventures LLC, No. 26-136, and the still-undocketed Kahoot! petition all come from challengers complaining that the Office will not institute. See Dennis Crouch, Four Petitions, One Question: Tesla Joins the Supreme Court's IPR Reviewability Docket, Patently-O (July 30, 2026). FedEx complains about the opposite: the Office instituted and adjudicated without satisfying a statutory precondition. Earlier this summer the Court denied certiorari in Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corp. v. Unified Patents, LLC, No. 25-1011, which raised the same question about the same agency practice.