The USPTO Issued More Trademark Office Actions in September 2025 Than in July and August Combined

Quarterly USPTO Prosecution Report | Data through September 30, 2025

September did the work of a quarter. The USPTO issued 20,499 non-final office actions in September 2025 alone — more than the 9,941 it issued across July and August put together, and more than four times the August figure. Final actions followed the same curve, jumping from 222 in August to 1,359 in September. A quarter that opened at a flat, ordinary pace ended in a wall of refusals.

That is not how examination volume normally behaves month to month, and the timing is the tell. September closes the federal fiscal year, and fiscal Q4 is exactly when the Trademark Operation has every incentive to clear inventory against its annual pendency targets. The agency spent FY2025 publicly framing its unexamined backlog as a priority and reported first-action pendency of 5.6 months, ahead of its own goal. We think the September spike most likely reflects a year-end push to move applications off the unexamined pile rather than a sudden surge in new conflicts — a calendar artifact, not a shift in what examiners are finding.

If your docket felt quiet in August and then detonated in September, that wasn't your imagination — the USPTO cleared its throat at fiscal year-end and roughly four months of refusals landed in one.

— Howard Katzenberg, Founder, GleanMark

For the full quarter, the Office issued 30,440 non-final and 1,867 final office actions, for 32,307 combined final/non-final office-action documents and 248,234 prosecution documents of all types. Non-final actions made up 94.2% of the final/non-final office-action universe — the practical workload was first refusals and requirements, not final-action follow-through.

A note on scope, stated once and not repeated: the refusal and argument tables below cover GleanMark's analyzed subset — 3,095 office actions and 1,877 responses for the quarter — not the USPTO's total refusal activity. Read them as practitioner signal, not as agency-wide rates.

1. Prosecution Volume

Period	Non-Final Actions	Final Actions	Total Final/Non-Final OAs	All Prosecution Documents	Non-Final MoM Change
July 2025	4,964	286	5,250	Not itemized	— (first month)
August 2025	4,977	222	5,199	Not itemized	+0.3%
September 2025	20,499	1,359	21,858	Not itemized	+311.9%
Q3 2025 Total	30,440	1,867	32,307	248,234	—

July and August were effectively the same month twice: 4,964 then 4,977 non-final actions, a rounding error apart. Then September quadrupled the count. A docket-forecasting model trained on the first two months of this quarter would have missed the quarter entirely, which is the real lesson here — trademark issuance volume clusters around the fiscal calendar, and the back of September is where it clusters hardest.

2. Document Types

Code	Document Type	Q3 2025
APP	Application	75,186
XSS	XSearch Search Summary	33,414
NFIN	Non-Final Action	30,440
AMC	Amendment and Mail Process Complete	18,196
ROA	Response to Office Action	12,632
EDS	Notice of Design Search Code Emailed	8,978
PNR	Public Note	8,191
SPE	Specimen	6,936
CAR	Change Address or Representation Form	4,528
FRC	Filing Receipt Trademark Application	3,760
SOU	Statement of Use	3,429
ELR	Application Extension to Response	3,118
PB	Notice of Publication	3,069
IUA	ITU Unit Action	2,958
EER	Notice of ITU Extension Approval	2,701
ESU	Extension of Time to File Statement of Use	2,411

This is the wider prosecution record — applications, search summaries, responses, specimens, extensions, publications. One number is worth pulling out of the table: 12,632 responses to office actions. Issuance is only one side of the ledger; applicants and their counsel were filing replies in bulk during the same window, so the September issuance wave will echo into Q4 response volume as those three-month clocks run out.

3. Refusal Landscape

Primary Refusal Type	Analyzed Responses	Share	Registered (Subset)
Section 2(d) — Likelihood of Confusion	1,591	84.8%	1,482
Section 2(e) — Descriptiveness / Surname	151	8.0%	57
Specimen Refusal	57	3.0%	56
Identification of Goods/Services	40	2.1%	37
Other	34	1.8%	30
Disclaimer Requirement	4	0.2%	4

Tag View (Overlapping)	Tagged Cases	Registered	Avg. Days to Reg.
Section 2(d) — Likelihood of Confusion	1,591	1,482	120
Section 2(e) — Descriptiveness / Surname	162	64	129
Identification of Goods/Services	121	78	135
Disclaimer Requirement	101	50	132
Specimen Refusal	88	69	117
Other	34	30	116

Section 2(d) is not just the leading refusal — it is nearly the whole story, primary in 1,591 of 1,877 analyzed responses. Everything else is a rounding footnote by comparison.

The gap between the two tables is where the planning value sits. Disclaimer requirements were the primary issue in only 4 responses but rode along as a tag in 101 — meaning disclaimers almost never arrive alone; they show up bolted to a bigger refusal. Identification issues tell the same story (40 primary, 121 tagged). For counsel, that means a "minor" disclaimer or ID requirement in your office action is usually a signal that a substantive refusal is sitting next to it.

On timing, the registered cases in the subset cleared in a tight band — 116 to 135 days, with Section 2(d) at 120. Identification-tagged matters were the slowest to register at 135 days, which fits: amending goods and services invites a second look at classification and scope.

4. Argument Effectiveness

Refusal Type	Instances	Verified Wins	Directional Score (0–1)
Section 2(d) — Likelihood of Confusion	1,614	1,395	0.945
Section 2(e) — Descriptiveness / Surname	276	98	0.809
Disclaimer Requirement	7	7	0.791
Identification of Goods/Services	30	28	0.723
Specimen Refusal	26	25	0.714
Other	15	11	0.596

Argument Category	Instances	Directional Score (0–1)	Outcome Multiplier
Consent Agreement	42	0.987	1.20
Cited Mark Abandoned	16	0.973	1.19
Third Party Registrations	61	0.962	1.20
Goods Amendment	590	0.953	1.18
Weakness Of Cited Mark	104	0.937	1.20
Class Deletion	75	0.934	1.14
Commercial Impression	314	0.933	1.20
Mark Distinction	229	0.908	1.20
Supplemental Register	105	0.904	1.12
Double Entendre	5	0.904	1.16
Consumer Sophistication	40	0.891	1.18
Goods Coexistence	104	0.883	1.19
Market Channel Distinction	37	0.879	1.18
Suggestive Not Descriptive	45	0.878	1.15
Incongruity	13	0.845	1.09

These are directional 0–1 scores, not win rates: 0.987 is a relative strength signal, not "98.7% of consent agreements won." Read alongside instance counts, the table rewards skepticism of the top of the list. Consent agreements lead at 0.987 — but on 42 instances. Cited-mark abandonment (0.973) rests on 16. The most useful line isn't the highest one; it's Goods Amendment, which scored 0.953 across 590 instances. When the single most common argument in the dataset is also one of the most effective, that is the play you build the response around.

The Section 2(e) toolkit is genuinely different and shouldn't be confused with the 2(d) one. Supplemental Register (0.904, 105 instances), suggestive-not-descriptive (0.878, 45), and incongruity (0.845, 13) all target descriptiveness or surname problems. Supplemental Register registration is available only to use-in-commerce applications and does nothing for a likelihood-of-confusion refusal. Disclaimers narrow what you claim within a mark; they don't cure source confusion. Using a 2(e) tool against a 2(d) refusal is not a weak argument — it's a non-argument.

Practitioner Takeaways

1. Plan for lumpy issuance, not smooth issuance. July and August were nearly identical; September quadrupled them. Fiscal year-end is the danger zone for surprise office actions, and the responses to September's wave will crowd Q4.

2. Section 2(d) is the response battleground. With likelihood-of-confusion primary in 1,591 of 1,877 analyzed responses, build the record around mark differences, commercial impression, cited-mark weakness, third-party use and registration evidence, goods narrowing, and consent agreements where commercially realistic.

3. Lead with goods amendments. They are both the most-used argument (590 instances) and among the most effective (0.953). High-scoring but rare tactics like consent agreements are situational; goods amendments are the workhorse.

4. Keep Section 2(e) arguments in their lane. Supplemental Register, suggestive-not-descriptive, incongruity, and disclaimers address descriptiveness and surname issues. They do not resolve a 2(d) refusal.

5. Treat a "minor" requirement as a tripwire. Disclaimer and identification issues rarely travel alone — they were tagged far more often than they were primary, usually alongside a substantive refusal that deserves your real attention.

Refusal and argument figures reflect GleanMark's analyzed subset (3,095 office actions; 1,877 responses for the quarter), not total USPTO refusal activity. Directional scores are relative effectiveness signals, not win percentages. Volume figures are sourced from USPTO prosecution records through September 30, 2025. Informational only; not legal advice.

Explore more USPTO data analysis on the GleanMark Insights blog.