Agency’s Acting Deputy Director Says It’s Back to Basics for the USPTO

Will Covey (left) with Gene Quinn.

During a fireside chat with IPWatchdog’s Gene Quinn on Monday, Will Covey, Acting Deputy Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), told attendees of IPWatchdog’s Patent Masters™ 2025 Program that he sees the current climate of change at the Office as an opportunity to improve by refocusing efforts on getting “back to basics”.

For instance, Covey said the agency has already saved 70,000 hours of examination time since January 20 of this year by drastically reducing its budget for employee travel and outreach programs, and has also saved, agency-wide, about 1,700 work days that way. “In the past we tried to say yes to everything, but we have to shift the focus back,” Covey said. “If it doesn’t fit within that Back to Basics [framework], we have to ask the hard questions.”

While the Trump hiring freeze will undoubtedly impact the Office’s ability to deliver if they are not able to hire more examiners within the coming months, Covey said they lost fewer administrative patent judges (APJs) under President Trump’s Fork in the Road program than they thought they would (about 30)—the Office presently has about 8,500 patent examiners and 201 APJs. The hiring freeze remains in place until July 15 for now.

The agency also just recently called back all new employees—examiners who were hired up to one year ago—to the Alexandria headquarters, where they must work in person for one year. The purpose the return to office requirement for new examiners is to enable them to receive comprehensive training in an in-person environment where supervisors and other trainers are available readily for questions and discussion. “This training methodology was successfully used for decades,” Covey added, “and resulted in highly successful examiners who stayed with the agency for years.”

Apart from the effects of the government shakeup, Covey said the Office remains concerned with fraud on the Office across both patents and trademarks. Despite the USPTO’s efforts to crack down on abuses, U.S. attorneys continue to rent their bar numbers out to foreign filing firms, recently for as little as $5 per filing, Covey said. Between 2022 and 2024, 6-7% of total trademark filings listed in disciplinary cases (OED) were improper or fraudulent, he added.

On the patent side, in April the Office announced a new working group dedicated to fighting fraud, dubbed the Patent Fraud Detection and Mitigation Working Group. It “represents the agency’s continued commitment to limit improper activity in patent applications and reexamination proceedings at USPTO and reduce patent application pendency,” according to a press release.

Covey was named Acting Deputy Director in February. He previously served as the Deputy General Counsel and Director for the Office of Enrollment and Discipline and has been with the USPTO since 2000, during which time he has held a number of positions.

Covey spoke to Quinn as part of a three-day program taking place this week at IPWatchdog headquarters through Wednesday. Other panels on day one discussed patent drafting, global portfolio strategies, balancing patents and trade secrets, and more. Tuesday and Wednesday will include panels on monetization, FRAND, litigation and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Learn about IPWatchdog’s upcoming programs here.

An earlier version of this article said the Office saved 527,000 hours of examination time but the figure provided to Covey was incorrect; it has since been updated.