In an effort to address growing concerns over application fraud and to reduce the backlog of unexamined design patent applications, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has announced that it will suspend the expedited examination procedure for design applications, effective April 17, 2025.

According to the USPTO, requests for expedited examination—commonly used to speed up the prosecution timeline—have surged by 560% in recent years, a trend which has been attributed in large part to a wave of fraudulent filings. The suspension is intended to relieve pressure on the agency’s resources and to allow examiners to focus on processing applications more effectively and accurately.

The USPTO’s announcement can be found here.

Tyler Litwak is an intellectual property attorney at Malloy & Malloy’s Boca Raton office, assisting inventors with, among other things, patent searches, patent applications, foreign patents, and Patent Cooperation Treaty (“PCT”) filings. Mr. Litwak helps individual inventors and corporate clients alike navigate complex patent practice and meet their intellectual property goals, and is available to consult with clients in the Boca Raton and Miami offices.