Since the start of the USPTO’s 2022 fiscal year, the director of the Office of Enrollment and Discipline’s (OED) has been busy investigating and prosecuting attorneys. In this week’s opinion, McCabe & Ali partner Emil J Ali looks at what the publication of these disciplinary orders in the past few months tell us about its approach to trademark law.

In FY 2021 (which ended on 30 September 2021), the USPTO only disciplined six trademark practitioners across the entire 12 month period – this compares to 18 patent practitioners in the same timeframe, according to OED records.  In other words, 25% of the USPTO’s disciplinary actions involved trademark practitioners. However, in our review of the USPTO’s Disciplinary Decisions in the first few months of FY 2022 (beginning on 1 October 2021), the OED has already disciplined a large number of practitioners for trademark-related conduct.