The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director has granted Director Review and vacated the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s decisions to institute two separate inter partes review (IPR) proceedings challenging the same patent claims in a dispute between CrowdStrike, Inc. and GoSecure, Inc.
Background of the Dispute
The case involves two IPR proceedings (IPR2025-00068 and IPR2025-00070) filed by CrowdStrike challenging Patent 9,954,872 B2 owned by GoSecure. CrowdStrike filed separate petitions primarily to present two different interpretations of the claim term “association,” a broader construction and a narrower construction.
The Director’s Ruling
Acting Under Secretary Coke Morgan Stewart determined that the Board abused its discretion by instituting both proceedings. The Director emphasized that “one petition should be sufficient to challenge the claims of a patent in most situations” and “multiple petitions by a petitioner are not necessary in the vast majority of cases,” citing the Board’s Consolidated Trial Practice Guide. The Director found that allowing multiple petitions for different claim constructions “effectively expands the permitted word count and places ‘a substantial and unnecessary burden on the Board and the patent owner and could raise fairness, timing, and efficiency concerns.’”