NAPP eNews™/SEPT/2017

NAPP eNews™ for Sept 2017


AMC 2017 "All the way!" in San Jose

The high point of our NAPP year is our annual meeting & conference, and AMC 2017 was no exception! We had 87 registered attendees (plus 10 sponsorship registrations) join us for 18 hours of legal education, a reception, and a networking event at the nearby technology museum. The Silicon Valley branch of the USPTO is situated right next to San Jose's city hall, in a surprisingly modest building that still manages to provide space for community outreach and event hosting. A great big "Thank you!" goes out to our USPTO hosts and NAPP's own AMC committee, chaired by Lisa Adelson.

AMC 2018 back East in Alexandria

Planning is already underway for next year! Alex Pokot has taken the reins of the AMC committee to plan for our return to the USPTO in Alexandria. This continues our soon-to-be-broken pattern of alternating between the Alexandria office and one of the other USPTO branches. Dates have not yet been finalized, but we're aiming for the third week of July 2018. Suggestions for speakers and topics and activities should be directed to Alex, either directly or via our Executive Director J.J. Meidl at [email protected]

AMC 2019 and beyond

Did I mention that our AMC location pattern would be changing soon? As part of our drive to grow NAPP's membership, the Board of Directors has decided to take the AMC “on the road” to cities where local NAPP chapters are getting organized. Seattle has been selected as the site for AMC 2019. Chicago is likely to be one of the future sites.

Local NAPP Chapters

And speaking of local NAPP chapters, the chair of our Membership Engagement Committee, Mike Carey, is getting NAPP members connected with each other on a local level by finding organizers for local meetups. Such meetups can be as informal as coffee between colleagues, as formal as a CLE luncheon, or somewhere in between like a happy hour with an "official topic" for attendees to discuss together before breaking into individual conversations. If you're interested in organizing a local meetup in your area, please contact Mike.So far we have.

Local Chapters:

Elections for the Board of Directors

An important part of the AMC is the election for Board of Directors. During AMC 2017, we had incumbent Louis Hoffman re-elected to his seat and five other candidates contesting for the two director positions vacated by David Grossman and Jerry Miller. Congratulations to Priya Cloutier and Dan Krueger on their election to the board! And many thanks to David and Jerry for their many years of service to NAPP.

Appointment of Officers

A Board of Directors meeting was held after the AMC to appoint officers for the organization. Jeff Wendt stepped down as President, and David Stein stepped down as Vice President, each citing heavy personal commitments for the upcoming year, but we are fortunate to have them staying on as Directors. Our new executive team is:

  • Chair: Louis Hoffman
  • President: Dan Krueger
  • Vice President: Lisa Adelson
  • Secretary: Dan Beinart
  • Treasurer: Bill Richards

Please assist our executive team in their endeavors to make NAPP everything it can be!

Director resignation and appointment

At the post-AMC meeting, Bruce Young resigned as director, citing personal commitments. We are sorry to see him go, but wish him well and send a big “Thank you!” for his years of service. After considering various candidates, the Board asked Alex Pokot to serve out the remaining year of Bruce's term. Alex has been active in the organization and is currently chair of the AMC committee. We're glad to have him on the Board. As it currently stands, our board is:

  • Terms expiring 2018: Alex Pokot, David Stein, Jeff Wendt
  • Terms expiring 2019: Lisa Adelson (VP), Dan Beinart (Secretary), William Richards (Treasurer)
  • Terms expiring 2020: Priya Cloutier, Louis Hoffman (Chair), Dan Krueger (President)

Please feel free to share your thoughts about NAPP's direction and performance with your Directors!

Recognition of Volunteers

An even more important part of the AMC is the recognition of our volunteers! These dedicated folks donate their time and effort to keep our organization running:

Lisa Adelson (BOD Vice President)
Richard Baker (PD, Candidate for Board)
Tom Bassolino (AMC)
Dan Beinart (BOD Secretary, Benefits Chair)
Jennifer Bell (Marketing)
William J. Campbell (Marketing, Candidate for Board)
Mike Carey (Engagement Chair, Local organizer)
George Chen (Candidate for Board)
Priya Cloutier (BOD, PD Chair)
John T. Davis (Benefits, Marketing)
Thomas Dienwiebel (PD)
Lee Eubanks (Local organizer)
Anne Farhni (Benefits, Marketing, Local organizer)
Mavis Gallenson (Governance Chair, AMC)
Diane Gardner (Director emeritus)
David Grossman (Marketing)
Louis Hoffman (BOD Chair)

 

 

Richard Kirkpatrick (Marketing)
Dan Krueger (BOD President, Marketing Chair)
Herb Lacey (Local organizer)
David Ladner (AMC)
Guy LeTourneau (AMC)
Mary Ludwig (Local organizer)
Laurent Lusinchi (Governance, Local organizer)
Carie Mager (Benefits)
Gary Maze (Marketing, MTF)
Jeanette Meng Nakagawa (PD)
Alexander Pokot (BOD, AMC Chair, Local organizer)
Jonah Probell (Local organizer)
Bill Richards (BOD Treasurer)
David Stein (BOD, GA Chair)
Jeff Wendt (BOD, Legal Chair)
Bruce Young (Benefits)

(If I missed anybody, please let me know!!) Please thank them for their efforts and consider getting involved yourself! Now is the perfect time, when our committees are currently putting together their mission statements and identifying new projects and budgets for the new year.

Committee Restructuring Efforts

We have a number of committees with overlapping responsibilities, which the Board is planning to restructure as follows:

  • Governance (chaired by Mavis Gallenson): has and will continue to provide recommendations for improving NAPP's policies, procedures, and bylaws; and to develop "best practices" guidelines for directors and committee members.
  • Government Affairs (chaired by David Stein): has and will continue to consider proposed legislation, PTO rules/procedures, and court activities; to report to members on the likely impact of these events; and to submit comments as needed to give a collective voice to our membership.
  • Legal Affairs (chaired by Jeff Wendt): has and will continue to review contracts and advise NAPP on other legal matters.
  • Professional Development (chaired by Priya Cloutier): will develop NAPP-branded educational resources for patent prosecution and practice management.  
    • Annual Meeting & Conference (chaired by Alex Pokot): will plan and oversee each AMC, coordinating with the PD committee.
  • Public Relations (chaired by Mike Carey): a consolidation of the Marketing, Member Benefits, Member Engagement, and Social Media committees. They will provide recommendations for enhancing NAPP's image, promoting member's professional relationships with each other and the community, and growing our membership.
    • Forum Replacement Task Force (chaired by Dan Beinart)
    • Mentorship Program Task Force (chaired by Gary Maze) will provide recommendations for a new forum and a new mentorship program, respectively, coordinating as needed with the PR committee.

The best way to get involved in NAPP is to serve on a committee! If you are interested in any of the foregoing committees or task forces, please contact the appropriate chair person.

Governance Committee Agenda

Dan Krueger, president, has asked the Governance Committee to consider the following potential projects for the year:

  • Make a list of the existing guidelines, policies, procedures, bylaws, etc that officers, directors, committee chairs, & committee members should be familiar with. 
  • Ask the Executive Director to assemble & deliver these materials to the relevant people & get their acknowledgement of receipt (or put them on the website in an organized fashion).
  • Consider whether/how periodic follow-ups on policy familiarity (refreshers or audits) should be done 
  • Determine how recently each of the existing policies, procedures, etc., have been reviewed and, if anything is "stale", please determine if revisions are needed. 
  • Please investigate what reports are needed to preserve NAPP's corporate and nonprofit status
  • Please consider what sort of advertising policy NAPP should have. 

The committee is expected to meet in the near future to plan its activities for the year. Please contact Mavis Gallenson if you're interested in participating on the committee.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals v. Merus

The Government Affairs committee has been asked by one of the parties to consider filing an amicus brief on behalf of NAPP, urging the Federal Circuit panel to rehear the case, or perhaps to hear the case en banc. The issue at hand is whether the District Court acted properly by inferring deceptive intent (the applicant withheld four material references) as a sanction for patentee's "misconduct" during litigation. This adverse inference led to a finding of inequitable conduct against the patentee, arguably eroding the Federal Circuit's en banc holding in Therasense. The committee will make a recommendation to the Board in the near future, identifying the specific issue(s) to be addressed by the brief (if any) and the position to be advocated on behalf of NAPP, preferably but not necessarily with a tentative outline for justifying that position. If you are interested in participating, please contact David Stein.

Jamison/CNA

By now, everybody should have heard about NAPP's exclusive new Professional Liability insurance program that our Benefits committee has negotiated with Jamison and CNA. Members can of course continue to choose their own providers, and indeed it is wise to shop around because individual circumstances vary for different members. However, we believe this new program will offer most of our members a significant cost improvement over the competition. A big "Thank You!" goes out to Jamison and our Benefits committee for putting this program together!

Forum Work Progress

We appreciate our member's patience with the current forums. The Benefits committee has resisted the siren song of "anything would be better than this", and instead has conducted a careful, diligent search for a new forum provider worthy of our members. The committee is currently negotiating a contract with Invision Power Services to implement our new forum, a relationship that we hope can stand the test of time. In the coming weeks there will be a short beta-testing period before we roll out the service to all members. Please contact Dan Beinart if you'd like to be one of the beta testers.

Association Management Platform

Another one of the Board's goals for the year is to update our website to improve ease of use. The update will most likely take place as part of a migration from our current association management software platform (MemberClicks) to a new platform (YourMembership). We believe the new platform would improve the customer service experience for all of our members. If everything checks out OK, we hope to migrate to the new platform by the end of the year.

Membership Drive

As of the end of July, NAPP has 315 practitioner members, plus another 30 or so associate/student/vendor members. Given that there are over 45,000 registered patent practitioners, this number is far too low. We're tackling the issue on multiple fronts, migrating the forum to an easier-to-use forum, finding an association management platform that provides a much better customer service experience, organizing local meetups, and getting the AMC agenda published further in advance of the meeting date. We're also looking into the development of NAPP-branded webinars and educational content for the website, and even a NAPP mentorship program. The biggest challenge, however, may be getting the word out. Most patent practitioners haven't even heard of NAPP. The marketing committee is working to change this. Postcards, advertising, sponsorships, and community outreach efforts will be used to promote brand recognition and to encourage visits to the website. If you’d like to learn more about the exciting, dangerous world of marketing, please reach out to Mike Carey to learn more about the efforts of the marketing committee.


Officers (also serve as Directors)

 

Daniel J. Krueger, PhD

President/Director

Term 2017-2020

Lisa Adelson

Vice President/Director

Term 2016-2019

Dan Beinart

Secretary/Director

Term 2016-2019

Image result for William Richards patent

William Richards

Treasurer/Director

Term 2016-2019

Directors  

Jeff Wendt

Director

Term 2015-2018

 

David Stein

Director

Term 2015-2018

 

 

 

Alexander Pokot 

Director

Term 2017-2018 

 

Louis Hoffman

Board Chair/Director

Term 2017-2020

 

Priya Sinha Cloutier 

Director

Term 2017-2020

 

 

  NAPP    

 VISION
 To be the organization of choice for all patent prosecution professionals.

 MISSION
 To provide networking, education, collegial exchange, benefits, and a collective voice in the larger IP community on patent law and prosecution practice, so that patent practitioners can flourish and achieve the highest levels of competence and professionalism in their practice.