The Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s July 14, 2026 institution decision in IPR2026-00276 is a reminder of the relatively modest—but still meaningful—threshold a petitioner must meet to get an inter partes review off the ground. In granting institution, the Board concluded that the petition established a reasonable likelihood that at least one challenged claim is unpatentable, clearing the statutory bar under 35 U.S.C. § 314(a).

At the institution stage, the PTAB is not issuing a final merits ruling.

The Supreme Court has handed down a major administrative-law ruling, siding with President Donald Trump in a dispute over the firing of FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter and sharply expanding presidential removal authority over independent agencies. In doing so, the Court overruled Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the 1935 precedent that had long been understood to shield FTC commissioners from removal except for cause.

The case, Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al., Petitioners v. Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, is likely to become a cornerstone decision in the Court’s modern separation-of-powers jurisprudence.

In one of the most closely watched separation-of-powers developments of the Supreme Court’s recent term, the Court declined—for now—to let President Trump remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, signaling that the Federal Reserve may occupy a different constitutional space than other independent agencies. The move stands out all the more because the Court’s broader rulings this term generally expanded presidential authority to remove executive officials.

The litigation is unfolding through multiple levels of the federal courts, including Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, Applicant v. Lisa D. Cook, Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, et al. at the Supreme Court and Lisa Cook v. Donald Trump, et al in the D.C. Circuit.

The U.S. Supreme Court handed federal regulators two important victories, preserving enforcement tools that many companies had hoped the justices might narrow. In one decision, the Court ruled for the Federal Communications Commission in its dispute with ATT and Verizon over agency-imposed fines. In the other, the Court unanimously sided with the Securities and Exchange Commission, affirming the agency’s ability to seek broad disgorgement in enforcement actions involving investor fraud.

Taken together, the rulings stand out because they cut against the recent trend of heightened judicial skepticism toward administrative agencies.

On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court denied the government’s application for a stay in Trump v. Cook, leaving in place a lower-court order that allows Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook to remain in office while her challenge to an attempted removal proceeds. The order is procedural, not a final ruling on the merits. But for lawyers watching the Court’s approach to presidential control over independent institutions, it is a meaningful development.

The dispute arises from the Trump administration’s attempt to remove Cook from the Federal Reserve Board.

The U.S. Supreme Court has handed down a major administrative-law ruling with immediate consequences for federal agencies, regulated businesses, and the lawyers who advise them.

The Supreme Court’s decision in FCC v. ATT, Inc. is a major win for federal agency enforcement and a significant development for the telecom industry. In a ruling issued June 4, 2026, the Court held that the Federal Communications Commission’s forfeiture process does not violate the Seventh Amendment, allowing the agency to continue imposing substantial monetary penalties through its existing administrative framework.

The dispute stemmed from FCC enforcement actions seeking roughly $57 million from ATT and $47 million from Verizon over alleged failures to safeguard customer location data.

The U.S. Supreme Court has handed down a consequential separation-of-powers decision, ruling 6-3 that the president may remove FTC commissioners at will. In doing so, the Court allowed President Donald Trump’s firing of Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter to stand and overturned the longstanding 1935 precedent of Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which had insulated FTC commissioners from removal except for cause.

The dispute, now reflected on Docket Alarm as Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al., Petitioners v. Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, marks one of the Court’s most significant recent statements on presidential control over the administrative state.

A June 26, 2026 filing in the Ninth Circuit puts a threshold issue front and center: whether this case should remain in the court of appeals at all. Respondent Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has filed a motion to dismiss in No. 25-8059, asking the court to terminate the proceeding before the merits are reached.

Although the docket entry provides only the motion’s caption-level detail, the filing itself is notable because motions to dismiss at the appellate level often turn on core gatekeeping doctrines that can decide a case without any substantive ruling on the challenged agency action.

The Supreme Court’s latest action backing President Trump’s firing of an FTC member is likely to reverberate well beyond the Federal Trade Commission. For lawyers tracking the administrative state, the immediate takeaway is not just about one personnel dispute—it is about the Court’s growing willingness to reconsider how much insulation Congress can give independent agencies from presidential control.

That shift matters because many enforcement and rulemaking frameworks rest on the assumption that certain regulators can operate with a measure of independence from the White House.

A new inter partes review filed at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board could be one to watch for companies operating at the intersection of life sciences, nutraceuticals, and consumer health. In IPR2026-00400, the proceeding is captioned Thorne Research, Inc. and was filed on June 22, 2026.

At this early stage, the PTAB docket signals that a patent challenge involving Thorne Research is underway, but practitioners should note that key details—including the specific patent claims at issue, the identity of the petitioner and patent owner as reflected in the styled papers, and the precise invalidity combinations asserted—may develop as the record fills out.

The U.S. Supreme Court has sided with the Trump administration in a closely watched asylum-processing dispute, overturning a lower-court ruling that had blocked the policy as unlawful. The decision gives the federal government wider room to structure how asylum claims are handled at the border and underscores the Court’s continued attention to the scope of executive authority in immigration enforcement.

At a high level, the case centered on whether the administration’s asylum-processing framework was consistent with governing immigration statutes and the procedural limits imposed by federal law.

As the Supreme Court enters the final stretch of its term, the legal industry is closely watching a cluster of pending decisions that could reshape litigation strategy, regulatory compliance, and constitutional doctrine well beyond June. The current legal news cycle is being driven less by a single blockbuster ruling than by the unusually broad practical impact of the Court’s remaining docket.

The cases drawing the most attention reportedly span administrative authority, civil rights, employment-related disputes, and the scope of federal power.

The U.S. Supreme Court handed the Securities and Exchange Commission an important enforcement victory on June 4, upholding the agency’s authority to pursue disgorgement in securities cases. The ruling preserves a remedy the SEC has long relied on to strip alleged wrongdoers of ill-gotten gains, and it arrives at a moment when the Court has often taken a more skeptical view of federal agency power.

For the SEC, disgorgement is not just an add-on remedy.

The Supreme Court in early June handed the Federal Communications Commission an important administrative-law win, rejecting a challenge by ATT and Verizon to the agency’s process for imposing telecom fines. The ruling preserves a key piece of the FCC’s enforcement toolkit and, just as notably, suggests the Court is not prepared to automatically extend its recent hostility toward some forms of agency adjudication into every regulatory setting.

The dispute centered on whether the FCC’s in-house enforcement mechanism for monetary penalties runs afoul of constitutional limits that have drawn increasing scrutiny in recent years.