McCabe Ali’s Emil J Ali notes that a period of leadership flux at the USPTO has placed unusual scrutiny on the OED, with its next director poised to influence everything from practitioner admissions to how the agency responds to mounting concerns over fraud, sanctions and proportionality in attorney discipline.
Since the beginning of 2025, the USPTO’s OED has been without a permanent director, with former OED Director Will Covey first being designated as the acting deputy director of the USPTO, and now being formally named the USPTO’s CCO. In October 2025, the USPTO opened its recruitment for a new OED director, a role that stands to radically shape practitioner admissions, ethics enforcement, and disciplinary outcomes for years to come.