Design Lawyers Face Bumps Amid USPTO Hiring Spree

The process for obtaining a design patent at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) may come with long wait times. The average wait time from the filing date to the first office action was 17 months as of February 2023. This is slight bump from 16.7 months in January, 16.4 in December 2022 and 15.4 in November 2022.

Finnegan partner Beth Ferrill told Managing Intellectual Property that unsurprisingly, the wait is frustrating as the US already has one of the slowest systems in the world.

“The pendency just creates even more issues for clients. They really just have to sit back and watch infringement take place even if they’ve done the right thing and filed for design rights,” she says.

Beth said the USPTO is careful about making sure everything is reviewed.

She notes, however, that the senior employees have more than one trainee, which may be why some things slip through the cracks.

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