How to Read the USPTO Workload Tables — Patent and Trademark Filings, Pendency and Revised Counts

As of 10 November 2026, 01:17 KST (retrieved by this page at that time); latest listed on the agency page at retrieval: the USPTO Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Workload Tables, an Excel workbook of 29 numbered tables (32 sheets: a table of contents and 31 table sheets, with Tables 13a, 13b, 29A and 29B) from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The workbook carries no publication date; the USPTO annual reports page that lists it shows Last updated on: Oct 15, 2026. The tables open with: "This section is required by 35 U.S.C. § 13." FY 2025 ran from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025. Primary source: https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/USPTOFY25WorkloadTables.xlsx^[1][2]

Comparison basis: counts are printed as whole numbers and pendency in months rounded to one decimal; this page adds thousands separators. Table 1 footnote 1 says: "FY 2025 filing data are preliminary and will be finalized in the FY 2026 Workload Tables." Footnote 2 says: "FY 2024 application data have been updated with final end-of-year numbers." The previous column therefore shows FY 2024 as first published in the FY 2024 tables, and the year-ago column measures the change against FY 2024 as revised one year later.^[1][3]

In three lines

1. 678,108 patent applications were filed in FY 2025, a preliminary count (Table 1), up from 663,809 in FY 2024 as revised.
2. Average total pendency stayed at 26.3 months while first action pendency was 22.6 months (Table 4).
3. Trademark filings including additional classes reached 824,192, and trademark first action pendency fell to 5.6 months (Table 15).^[1]

Purpose and companion reports. The annual reports page describes the tables as multi-year listings of filings, pendency, filings by states and countries, petitions, litigation and personnel. It also says: "Beginning in Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 (October 1, 2021 - September 30, 2022), we adopted the Agency Financial Report (AFR) and Annual Performance Plan and Annual Performance Report (APPR) in lieu of a Performance and Accountability Report (PAR)." The FY 2025 Agency Financial Report is listed on the same page; this page did not use it.^[2]

Pendency definitions. Table 1 footnote 8 defines total pendency: "Average time (in months) between filing and issuance or abandonment of utility, plant, and reissue applications." "This average does not include design patents." First action pendency appears only in Table 4, by technology center, for the latest year.^[1]

Trademark counts by class. Table 15 footnote 1 says: "There are, however, 47 different classes of items in which a trademark may be registered." The number 47 is the wording of this table footnote. One application can cover several classes, so the 824,192 class filings in FY 2025 correspond to 622,905 applications. The trademark pendency in Table 15 is listed under Pendency—Average Number of Months as a fiscal-year average, 7.5 months for FY 2024 and 5.6 months for FY 2025, with no target column in the table.^[1]

Withdrawn grants. For Patents Issued in Table 1, footnote 7 says: "Excludes withdrawn numbers." "Past years' data may have been revised from prior-year reports." Table 6's only footnote on its totals repeats that past years' data may have been revised and does not mention withdrawn patents. Table 10 adds: "It is not uncommon for the withdrawal status of patents issued in prior years to change." Table 3 counts pending applications and "Does not include allowed applications."^[1]

Three FY 2024 grant totals. The FY 2024 tables printed 365,614 patents issued in FY 2024. The FY 2025 tables print 373,068 in Table 1 and 371,491 in Table 6 for the same year, and 382,056 (Table 1) and 380,773 (Table 6) for FY 2025. The footnotes say past years may be revised; the 1,577 and 1,283 gaps between Table 1 and Table 6 within the same edition cannot be reconciled from the tables, and their cause is not established.^[1][3]

Inter partes reviews pending at the turn of the year. The FY 2024 Table 14 ends with 1,256 inter partes reviews pending as of 9/30/24; the FY 2025 Table 14 starts from 1,244 pending as of 9/30/2024. The 12-case difference is not explained in either table and is not established.^[1][3]

Foreign residents' grants and one country row. The FY 2024 Table 10 printed 206,901 patents to residents of foreign countries in FY 2024, including 7,593 to the United Kingdom. The FY 2025 Table 10 prints 194,918 for FY 2024, and its United Kingdom row shows a dash instead of a number for both FY 2024 and FY 2025. The tables do not explain the change, so it is not established.^[1][3]

Shares and rates without units. Table 28 prints the FY 2025 patent examiner attrition rate as 0.0756 and the FY 2024 rate as 0.041 with no unit; read as shares, they are 7.6% and 4.1%. The same table prints 7.87 and 3.24 for trademark examining attorney attrition in FY 2008 and FY 2009, so the format of each cell is not stated in the workbook text. Table 11 is titled as a percentage table but stores the FY 2025 small entity share of utility grants as the fraction 0.22031669128869558, or 22.0% when read as a share.^[1][3]

FY 2025 filings by state and country are not in the workbook. Tables 7 and 9 show N/A for FY 2025, with the footnote: "FY 2025 preliminary data should be available January 2026 at www.uspto.gov and finalized in the FY 2026 Workload Tables." The FY 2025 tables posted at retrieval still show N/A, so whether those preliminary figures were published elsewhere is not established.^[1]

Grants by residence. Table 8 counts 161,677 patents issued to U.S. residents in FY 2025 and Table 10 counts 210,389 to residents of foreign countries; Table 11 notes: "Patent origin is based on residence of the first-named inventor." Country rankings in these tables are counts of grants, not measures of inventive activity, and are revised as withdrawal information changes.^[1]

Dates kept apart. Fiscal year covered: FY 2025, October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025. PTAB and litigation tables: as of September 30, 2025. Workbook: no date printed. Annual reports page: Last updated on: Oct 15, 2026. FY 2025 filing counts: preliminary until the FY 2026 tables.^[1][2][3]

Next release. The tables say FY 2025 filings will be finalized in the FY 2026 Workload Tables, but neither the workbook nor the annual reports page gives a date, so the next release date is not established.^[1][2]