Remarks by John A. Squires at the swearing in of John Duffy, General Counsel of the USPTO

Remarks as prepared

John A. Squires

Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and 60th Director of the USPTO

Swearing in of John Duffy as USPTO's General Counsel

Washington, D.C.

October 5, 2026

Good morning, everyone.

It's an honor to have you here today, for this very special occasion wherein my friend, colleague, and compatriot steps into America's Innovation Agency to assume the duties of the General Counsel of the United States Patent and Trademark Office and take a leadership role in our effort to supercharge the reach and range of American ingenuity.

The site for John's swearing-here at Dolley Madison House-is perfect for the occasion, as it has quite a history of bringing American leaders together.

Dolley Madison made it a gathering place for Washington. More than a century later, it became NASA's first headquarters-indeed, if you remember The Right Stuff-the Mercury Seven astronauts were first introduced to the world right here. And today, it is part of the Federal Circuit's home.

Frontiers, establishing new orders and above all, the law-what a fitting place to welcome John Duffy as General Counsel of America's Innovation Agency.

There is a Madison connection worth remembering, too. Writing about the rights of authors and inventors, James Madison observed: "The public good fully coincides in both cases with the claims of individuals."

That is an extraordinary proposition, introduced by a new nation as a first and enabled as an individual right in our Constitution, of course, in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8. Incentivize the protection of American ingenuity-protect it robustly-and watch the engine of progress shift into higher and higher gear.

John and I have been talking for more than 20 years about how our amazing system-one like no other-can best fulfill that promise, specifically in respect of expansive patent eligibility.

We met when I was at Goldman Sachs, and ours ended up being the clarion call on eligibility, particularly as we argued for the new technologies of risk relevance determinations for inventions to combat terrorism and to counteract and even interdict illicit financial activities. That conversation became the driving force behind our Bilski collaboration, first before the en banc Federal Circuit and then up to, and prevailing at, the United States Supreme Court.

Our conviction was and is this: American innovation will take forms we cannot yet imagine. Indeed, who could have predicted crypto, quantum, and AI back in 2000. And if you did, you don't belong here, you belong on a trading floor. Our patent system specifically, and American innovation in general, must make room for the on-rush of technologies, wherever they lead. The narrow judicial exceptions to eligibility are exactly that, narrow, and as such we believe there is room enough for them ready and waiting.

And now, John, we get to work together again, directed and focused squarely on ushering in America's Golden Age of Innovation.

John, you bring a remarkable range and breadth of experience to this high responsibility: an incredible grounding in physics from Harvard, a tour at world-famous Bell Labs, and years in the Academy as one of the country's foremost and thoughtful scholars, and also legal practitioners, serving with distinction previously at the Justice Department, and remarkable clerkships with Judge Williams and Justice Antonin Scalia.

Your eagle eye even spotted a constitutional flaw in the appointment of our Administrative Patent Judges, in "The Little Article That Could" I recall as we used to discuss it, appearing in a newly but importantly burgeoning channel-blogs-appearing first not in an academic journal, but with Dennis Crouch's Patently-O. Indeed, Dennis recently posted regarding your planned acceptance of the GC position, noting your deep respect for the patent system, the law, and profound understanding and rich history of American jurisprudence. This is the person, friend, scholar, colleague, former client, and compatriot that I've had the honor of knowing for over two decades. This is no doubt a person of The Right Stuff.

You are an erudite and careful scholar. But more importantly, you've honed your craft to become one of the most accomplished appellate advocates to see around the corner of where the law should go to best protect American ingenuity as the Constitution intended, and argue successfully time and again, where in predominant part, U.S. patent policy gets made-the Grand Daddy of Them All. The U.S. Supreme Court.

As excited as I am that you'll be the top lawyer at America's Innovation Agency, I'm off-the-charts excited about what this means for U.S. Innovation of every stripe, to every applicant, to every individual inventor, every new business, every established enterprise and the pioneering giants, everyone who has a new idea, a better way, a bit different vision of the art of the possible. Because collectively it is these intrepid spirits who define American ingenuity to the world, and why America leads the world.

It is also a tremendous honor to have Judge Ryan Holte of the United States Court of Federal Claims administer the oath of office today. Judge Holte did me the high honor of swearing me in to my post as the 60th Director of the USPTO, and, as a former academic and law professor himself, indeed a patent holder, this is one of those rare-'IP comes-full' circle moments.

Judge, I appreciate the honor, that you bestow upon us today, particularly in administering John's oath of office to serve the American people and help the USPTO to do its muscular part to usher in the Golden Age of American Ingenuity.

Welcome, John. I am honored you've chosen to serve again, and to serve, here, now and together. And together, with the urgency of now, I cannot wait to put our experience to work for America's innovators.

Judge Holte, the floor is yours.