Coke Morgan Stewart

Coke Morgan Stewart is an American lawyer and government official who served as the Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), from January 20, 2025 until July 2026. She concurrently served as acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and acting director of the USPTO until John A. Squires became director on September 22, 2025. As acting director, she instituted procedural changes to discretionary denial practice at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. She left the agency in July 2026 to return to private practice.

Education

Stewart graduated cum laude from Duke University with a Bachelor of Arts. She earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and editor-in-chief of the Virginia Law Weekly. After law school, she clerked for Judge James T. Turner of the United States Court of Federal Claims.

Career

Stewart practiced intellectual property litigation in Washington, D.C., including at Kaye Scholer LLP, where she represented patent holders and accused infringers in patent infringement litigation.

As acting director, Stewart oversaw several procedural changes affecting the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). In February 2025, the USPTO rescinded a 2022 memorandum concerning discretionary denials in America Invents Act post-grant proceedings involving parallel district court litigation. On March 26, 2025, Stewart issued a memorandum establishing an interim bifurcated process under which the director would first address discretionary-denial issues before referring petitions to PTAB panels for merits and other non-discretionary considerations.

On July 31, 2025, Stewart issued a USPTO memorandum concerning admitted prior art and general knowledge in inter partes review proceedings. The memorandum stated that the agency would enforce and no longer waive 37 C.F.R. § 42.104(b)(4), and that inter partes review petitions must identify where each claim element is found in prior art patents or printed publications. The policy applied to petitions filed on or after September 1, 2025. A Reuters legal analysis described the policy as restricting the types of prior art that could be used to supply claim limitations in inter partes review petitions.

The USPTO announced Squires's arrival as director on September 22, 2025, and stated that Stewart would continue to serve as Deputy Under Secretary and Deputy Director. Two days later, Director Squires announced in a message to agency employees that Anne Mendez, the USPTO's chief administrative officer, would serve as acting Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and acting Deputy Director of the USPTO beginning August 2, 2026.

Stewart left the USPTO in July 2026. In assessing her tenure, MLex wrote that her changes to inter partes review practice had continued under Squires and had altered the strategies used by patent practitioners.