Law360 Speaks with Eric Perrott About Key Issues at the USPTO

Since new leadership has been appointed to the USPTO , the agency has made progress on some key trademark prosecution metrics. Trademark attorneys, however, have noted delays in other areas of trademark prosecution.

Law360 spoke with trademark attorney Eric Perrott, to get his thoughts on some specific issues at the USPTO. 

Trademark Office Inventory
The USPTO was inundated with trademark applications at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and quickly developed a significant backlog in trademarks awaiting examination. Correcting this backlog has been a priority of the USPTO since.

“We’ve kind of seen a massive course correction – and I think [former Commissioner for Trademarks] David Gooder is the one who kind of championed this – of ‘All right, all hands. Everyone who can examine will examine. Let’s get through this backlog,'” said Eric Perrott of Gerben Perrott PLLC.

Total Pendency
These metrics look at how long it takes for a trademark to move through the trademark registration process at the USPTO. The total length of time has also been decreasing for the last couple of years.

Perrott said the bright spots for inventory and pendency data are a boon for clients, but argued that they come at the expense of other important data points.

“The bad news is that every other thing the USPTO touches from the trademark side is delayed,” he said.

USPTO’s Assignment and Certified Copy Center
Perrott also pointed to delays at the USPTO’s Assignment and Certified Copy Center, which attorneys use to get documents for things like a foreign trademark filing.

“That used to take a couple of weeks,” Perrott said. “It’s now taking months to the point where we are having to reapply in other countries because we can’t get a certified document in time.”

The Staffing Situation
The USPTO has continued to focus on improving staffing issues in order to address the issues that applicants and their attorneys are experiencing. The agency hired 59 new people in the 2025 fiscal year and will continue to hire trademark examiners in 2026.

Given these hiring needs, Perrott questioned the wisdom of some of the workforce shake-ups at the USPTO under the first year of the second Trump administration, such as deferred resignation and buyout programs, as well as return-to-office orders and clawbacks of bargaining rights for some unionized workers at the agency.

“Well, you had people,” he said. “Why are you gutting work from home? Why are you gutting union protections?”

Source: Schliep, Theresa. https://www.law360.com. “Squires and Stewart’s Trademark Office, By The Numbers”. 4 March 2026.