An Update From the USPTO

Helene recently attended an interesting presentation on the topics of application pendency and fraudulent applications put on by the USPTO.

As we all know, for the past few years the USPTO has been experiencing many delays in processing and examining applications and registration maintenance filings. The USPTO is working to shorten pendency and improve examination quality (with a goal of reducing pendency to 4½ months by 2027) by enhancing their IT systems, hiring new examiners, and using AI and cloud integration.  This would be a significant reduction from pendency peaks of close to 9 months by late 2024.

The USPTO is also working to reduce the number of fraudulent filings which has been a significant problem over the last several years. Bad actors use U.S. attorney credentials (with and without “permission”) to file fraudulent applications or to change existing applications/registrations to appoint themselves and get control over another’s applications or registrations. The reasons are many—to avoid the requirements for a legitimate U.S. attorney correspondent (for non-U.S. applicants).

Other scammers send fraudulent correspondence and invoices to applicants and registrants seeking payments from applicants and registrants.  A scam email, phone call or letter might include typos, misspellings or improper English, or come from an email address other than @uspto.gov.  If an email or letter about your existing application or registration seems suspicious, please let us know and we can review for you. You can report scams by emailing [email protected] with copies of the suspect correspondence.

Applications suspended for fraud may be permanently deemed to be void—even if the Applicant itself was the target of a fraudulent filer (even if the Applicant is blameless).  Further, these fraud-tainted filings often “block” later-filed legitimate applications for similar marks, which are themselves suspended until the fraud review is completed. The USPTO plans to implement AI to speed up the review process, which is currently done manually. The USPTO is also working with other government agencies (including the FBI and FTC) to identify scammers