USPTO promises a first office action within 14 months—but reality looks a bit different. Almost 90% of first office actions are issued after the 14-month window! A recent post on the Patently-O breaks down the growing gap (and why applicants might not mind as much as you’d think). Note: the full article is behind a paywall.
This is the fourth installment in our series of FishFAQ videos directed towards Trademarks. This video covers the importance of usage to trademarking.
You become a trademark owner by using it to identify the source of your goods or services. However, eligibility for registering your trademark for federal protection will require usage. You will have to submit samples of actual usage, or apply on an intention to use basis, which will require a statement of use within 6 months.
This series is an extension of our initial Patent FishFAQ series.
If videos aren’t your thing, we also have extensive text Patent and Trademark FAQ sections.
and though no videos have been made for Copyright questions, there is a text Copyright FAQ page too
The standard patent term is set at 20 years from the earliest effective filing date. But that’s really just the baseline. The actual term depends on a series of prosecution decisions, USPTO delays, and other factors.
Patently-O, a blog dedicated to issues surrounding patent law, published the chart below showing “the distribution of expected remaining patent term (measured from issuance) for utility patents issued between March 2025 and March 2026.”
At the far-right edge, there are a smaller number of patents that achieved close to the theoretical 20 years from filing. They used the accelerated examination options, the patents issued quickly, and they used up very little of the 20-year clock. There are two main spikes: around 18.5 and 17 years, which correspond to the typical examination timeline, and adding the Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) to compensate for processing delays.
Moving further to the right the patents with the shortest remaining terms are those that typically had extended prosecution histories. The majority of issued patents have more than 12 years of expected term remaining at issuance.
But the blog post points out a related issue. The final maintenance fee comes due 11.5 years after issuance. That fee is over $8k for large entities and in many cases providing only a few extra years of protection. The cost to benefit calculation might be leading more patent holders to just let the patent expire rather than pay the fee.
Patent term distribution ultimately provides a clearer picture of how the system operates. It shows that the twenty-year rule is only a starting point. Real outcomes depend on timing, strategy, and administrative realities. The result is a system where patent value can vary significantly at issuance.
Back in 2020, the USPTO asked for public input on “whether its interpretation of the article of manufacture requirement in the United States Code should be revised to protect digital designs that encompass new and emerging technologies.”
Nineteen comments were submitted. Twelve advocated that designs for projections, holograms, and virtual and augmented reality should be eligible for design patent protection.
In Nov 2023, the USPTO responded by publishing supplemental guidance. This would help determine whether a design claim including computer-generated electronic images constituted statutory subject matter under 35 USC 171.
However, the guidance didn’t address designs involving virtual or augmented reality. Following the publication of that guidance, the USPTO received additional public comments requesting clarification. Commenters noted that modern interfaces increasingly appear in projections, holograms, and virtual or augmented reality environments, rather than only on traditional computer displays or monitors.
Seven additional comments were submitted requesting further guidance.
On Friday March 13, 2026, the USPTO issued supplemental guidance. The guidance explains when computer-generated interfaces, icons, and emerging digital visuals can qualify for design patent protection.
This update reflects the reality that modern interfaces now appear in augmented reality, virtual reality, holograms, and projections, not just on traditional screens.
Image of a projection of a keyboard. One of the examples taken from the USPTO guidance.
Design patents still require a design for an “article of manufacture.” Traditionally, this meant a graphical user interface or icon displayed on a computer screen or display panel.
The USPTO now confirms that computer-generated interfaces and icons can still qualify as design patent subject matter. However, they must be tied to a computer, computer system, or display and must be more than a disembodied image.
Previously, design patent drawings typically had to show a display panel (often in broken lines) surrounding a GUI or icon. Under the new guidance:
Inventors can still include a screen in the drawings if they want, but it is no longer mandatory.
The USPTO explicitly states that designs such as:
may qualify for design patents even if they are not displayed on a traditional monitor.
What matters is that the design is for a computer system and is not merely a floating, unrelated image.
Even with this flexibility, applicants must still satisfy normal patent requirements. In particular:
The USPTO now accepts claim language such as:
These phrases properly link the design to an article of manufacture, satisfying the statute.
A stand-alone image or picture that is not tied to a computer, display, or computer system will still fail the article-of-manufacture requirement and be rejected.
For other articles related to design patents, see: The Latest Case in Enforcement of Design Patents
This is the third installment in our series of FishFAQ videos directed towards Trademarks. This third video covers the different levels of distinctiveness.
Distinctiveness is an important concept in the eligibility of a mark for registration. The measure of a mark’s ability to identify the specific source or goods or services is dependent in great part on how distinctive the name is. The USPTO has identified five levels of distinctiveness in trademark law. This video explains how it works.
This series is an extension of our initial Patent FishFAQ series.
If videos aren’t your thing, we also have extensive text Patent and Trademark FAQ sections.
and though no videos have been made for Copyright questions, there is a text Copyright FAQ page too.
This is the second of a new series of FishFAQ videos directed towards Trademarks. This second video covers the different types of marks.
Trademarks are used for goods, while service marks are used for services.
A third type is the word mark, which seeks protection over the word itself, beyond any particular design.
The video also talks about non-traditional marks.
This series is an extension of our initial Patent FishFAQ series.
If videos aren’t your thing, we also have extensive text Patent and Trademark FAQ sections.
and though no videos have been made for Copyright questions, there is a text Copyright FAQ page too.
A major USPTO examiner conflict settlement is drawing attention to ethics oversight inside the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Patent examiner Daxin Wu has agreed to pay $500,000 to resolve allegations that she reviewed patent applications from companies in which she held substantial stock—far exceeding federal ethics limits.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced the civil settlement on February 25, 2026. Between 2019 and 2022 Wu examined at least nine applications involving companies where she owned hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock, including over $900,000 in one company’s competitor.
Federal regulations (5 C.F.R. § 2640.202) allow examiners to hold no more than $15,000 in a single company under review or $25,000 across an industry sector—amounts dwarfed by Wu’s alleged holdings.
The allegations underlying this USPTO examiner conflict settlement center on 18 U.S.C. § 208, a criminal conflict-of-interest statute barring executive branch employees from participating personally and substantially in matters affecting their financial interests. Willful violations can carry up to five years’ imprisonment.
However, the matter was resolved civilly under the Ethics Reform Act of 1989, without any admission of liability. There is no public indication of disciplinary action beyond the financial penalty, and the DOJ press release describes Wu in the present tense as a USPTO examiner.
The case follows a 2024 report by the U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Inspector General. That report concluded the USPTO and the Department of Commerce failed to effectively administer their ethics program for patent examiners.
In a sample of 73 examiners, 26 had potential financial conflicts that ethics officials failed to identify. Projecting that rate across approximately 7,000 examiners required to file confidential financial disclosure reports, the OIG estimated that roughly 30% may have had undiscovered conflicts in 2022.
The Wu matter appears to be the first public enforcement action to emerge from those referrals, making this USPTO examiner conflict settlement particularly significant in light of the OIG’s findings.
Patent examiners at GS-13 through GS-15 must file annual confidential financial disclosure reports (CFDRs), listing assets and stock holdings over $1,000.
These reports are reviewed internally by ethics officials but are not publicly available, limiting external scrutiny.
The OIG also identified inconsistent ethics guidance. Some examiners reportedly believed they could hold up to $50,000 in industry stock without triggering recusal obligations. This is about double the actual regulatory cap. While that misunderstanding does not approach the magnitude of Wu’s alleged holdings, it suggests broader compliance and training issues that give context to the USPTO examiner conflict settlement.
The complexity of applying “industry sector” rules makes accurate conflict monitoring challenging. This is especially true in technology art units covering large swaths of the software market. The oversight system is intended to catch what self-reporting may miss.
The settlement resolves the government’s civil claims against the examiner. It does not address the legal status of the patents she examined.
Those patents remain in force. Patent law doctrines such as inequitable conduct focus on applicant misconduct, not examiner conflicts. The presumption of validity under 35 U.S.C. § 282 centers on the substantive quality of examination, not the examiner’s financial interests. Courts have generally avoided probing examiner motivations, effectively treating the examination process as a legal “black box.”
The situation also underscores differences within the executive branch ethics framework. In Centripetal Networks, LLC v. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (2025), the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that an administrative patent judge’s stock ownership within the $1,001 to $15,000 de minimis range did not require vacatur of PTAB decisions.
By contrast, the same court previously vacated a $1.9 billion district court judgment after finding that an Article III judge’s spouse owned $4,700 in Cisco stock—requiring disqualification under 28 U.S.C. § 455 regardless of how small the holding was.
Wu’s alleged stock positions were far beyond the regulatory gray zone addressed in those cases.
It has been two years after the OIG’s recommendations were accepted. As of now, there is no publicly available follow-up audit confirming whether corrective measures were fully implemented. The $500,000 USPTO examiner conflict settlement may represent accountability for one examiner whose alleged conduct was particularly egregious.
But the OIG’s projection—that roughly 30% of sampled examiners had potential undetected conflicts—raises broader institutional questions. If that estimate was accurate, the issue may extend well beyond a single settlement.