Event recap: Trademark Spotlight “Keynote Address from the Trademark Office at USPTO”

Speakers: Dan Vavonese, Acting Commissioner for Trademarks and Amy Cotton, Deputy Commissioner for Trademark Examination Policy
Moderator: Dana Brody-Brown, Chair, Trademark Interest Group, f California Lawyers Association
By Amy Williams, Student Reporter

Dan Vavonese opened the session with an overview of the challenges overcome in FY25, noting that the USPTO Trademark Office has been able to meet and exceed its goals. Staffing has remained steady despite the federal hiring freeze. Employee attrition during the freeze has presented challenges maintaining staffing levels for Examining Attorneys and policy administration.Through adapting, the USPTO has been able to keep up and provide the service customers are expecting.

Trademark Office Priorities

The Trademark Office’s five priorities for FY26 are encompassed by the “Drive Quality 360” initiative. “Forge the Path to 4” seeks to lower pendency. “Conquer the Seven IT Summits” looks to IT priorities, including updates, 100% cloud based systems and AI integration, over the next 2-3 years. “Escalate the Fight vs Fraud” identifying fraud before registration and removing fraudulent previous registrations. “Drive Quality 360” is the overview of quality, maintaining quality services while reducing pendency and increasing productivity. “Elevate Employee Experience” addresses the recent challenges and changes and hopes to provide employees the tools and motivation to meet goals. “Simplify Processes” looks to simplify workflows in many different areas.

Forge the Path to 4

A new priority has been added for FY26, “Forge the Path to 4,” seeks to lower first-action pendency to four months and overall disposal pendency to nine months by FY 28. FY25 First action pendency was reduced from 6.15 to 5.61 months, exceeding the previous goal of 6.7 months. FY25 disposal pendency was reduced from 12.76 to 11.73 months, exceeding the previous goal of 13 months. Overall inventory was reduced by increasing the number of first actions produced in relation to the number of application filings.

Escalate the Fight vs Fraud

Amy Cotton then discussed the USPTO priority “Escalate the Fight vs Fraud.” This priority addresses the sharp rise in trademark-related scams, which increased from 1,178 reports in FY 23 to 13,266 in FY 25. She outlined types of scams targeting either attorneys or USPTO customers. The types of scams targeting attorneys include filing-mill operations where the attorney’s information was used at least one time with permission, and credential hijacking scams where the attorney’s information was used without permission. The types of scams targeting applicants and registration holders include bogus “USPTO” payment portals, invoices and fees, bogus services relating to  registration and bogus demands for verifications that are unnecessary. The agency’s fraud-mitigation plan emphasizes three priorities: clearing the register of invalid filings, spreading the word through targeted outreach and CRM-based tracking of trademark  scams reports, and increasing efficiency using AI-supported investigations and enhanced data-analytics tools. Role-based user accounts, limiting filings to authorized representatives, are planned within two years.

Drive Quality 360

Cotton expanded on the agency’s “Drive Quality 360” initiative, a framework organized around continuous improvement. It promotes quality throughout the Trademark Office, quality review of applications and improving the quality of incoming applications. The effort also strengthens application quality through AI-assisted pre-examination tools and improved pro se resources within the redesigned Trademark Center, which will serve as a unified platform for all e-filing functions. The Trademark Center includes a wizard to assist filers with determining the upfront fees required at filing. Requiring the fees at the time of filing serves two priorities, reducing fraudulent applications and improving the quality of submitted applications.

January 2025 Fee Rule

The presentation concluded with early results from the January 2025 Fee Rule, which introduced a $350 base filing fee plus tiered surcharges to encourage complete, accurate submissions. Initial data shows higher rates of complete filings, more first-action approvals, fewer non-final actions, and a notable increase in front-end cost recovery. Collectively, these changes mark a strategic shift toward a faster, more transparent, and fraud-resilient trademark system built on data-driven oversight and sustained quality improvement.