Will Covey is the Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Acting Deputy Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). He serves as the principal advisor to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO, advising the Director and carrying out the agency’s policies, priorities, and programs.
Most recently, Mr. Covey was the Chief Advisor to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO. He supported the Office of the Under Secretary and the USPTO on a wide variety of policy and operational matters.
Previously, Mr. Covey served as the Deputy General Counsel and Director for the Office of Enrollment and Discipline (OED) at the USPTO. Mr. Covey was responsible for ensuring that the nation’s patent attorneys and agents are of good moral character and sufficiently knowledgeable to practice before the USPTO. Mr. Covey’s team of attorneys and other professionals developed and administered a registration examination designed to measure an applicant’s knowledge of patent law and practice. Successful applicants were registered to practice by OED. In addition, OED investigated complaints of unethical conduct made against individuals practicing patent or trademark law before the USPTO.
As Director of OED, Mr. Covey launched a nationwide pro bono program and developed new regulations implementing the one-year statute of limitations for investigations mandated by the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. He also oversaw a complete revision of the USPTO’s code of professional conduct to provide clarity and consistency to practitioners by harmonizing with the American Bar Association Model Rules. Mr. Covey additionally has directed the handling of dozens of lawsuits concerning the USPTO’s Trademark Local Counsel Rule, which was implemented to protect the Trademark Register from fraudulent foreign filings.
Has held a number of other key positions at the USPTO, including Acting General Counsel and Deputy General Counsel for the Office of General Law. He supervised significant federal intellectual property litigation, such as Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International and Tafas v. Dudas, numerous rulemaking efforts, administrative law matters, and employment and labor law issues.
Prior to joining the USPTO in 2000, Mr. Covey was a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. He also served on active duty in the Pentagon, and was a senior officer in the Army Reserve assigned to the Office of the Army Staff, Office of the Judge Advocate General. He completed combat tours in Iraq (2007) and Afghanistan (2011) and served as Deputy Legal Counsel to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mr. Covey retired from the Army in February 2022 at the rank of Colonel.
Mr. Covey received his undergraduate degree from Fordham University (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) and earned his Juris Doctor from Fordham University Law School in 1991. He graduated from the JFK School of Government at Harvard University in 2005 and the U.S. Army War College with a Master of Science in Strategic Studies in 2010.