February 2019 eNews

Happy New Year!

Amongst all the holiday celebrations and resolutions for the New Year, you probably didn't even miss the monthly NAPP eNews, did you? Oh, you did? Me too! Time to get this train back on track. Regardless, I hope you all enjoyed your holidays and are leaning eagerly into 2019.

Gov't Affairs Committee

The Gov't Affairs committee continues to thrive under Xhavin Sinha's leadership. One of our members called the committee's attention to a district court case in Colorado where the judge is considering whether to recognize the agent-client privilege. The committee declined to participate at the district court level, as the record isn't fully developed and the precedential impact would be fairly limited, but will reconsider if the case reaches the appellate court level.

The GAC is also arranging a discussion with the PTO leadership regarding the PTO proposal for CLE requirements and annual practitioner registration fees. NAPP is also concerned about PTO comments to the PPAC regarding a proposed requirement for practitioners to retake the registration exam when resuming their practice after 5 or more years of inactivity. If you're interested in participating in the discussion, please coordinate with Xhavin via Brandi ([email protected])

NAPP's Blog for Patent Practitioners

Since the last newsletter, there have been 6 (six!) blog posts made on the NAPP blog, which you can follow at https://medium.com/napp. There are Parts I &  II of Gary & Dan's article on Representing Joint Inventors/Assignees, a recap of the Tru Pettigrew webinar on "The power of inclusion", an article by Tonya Heyboer of Serco about drafting with classification in mind, a first installment of a regular "Overheard on the NAPP Forums" series, and a sure-to-be-controversial tale about how to "Escape from TC3600!".

  As always, ongoing contributions are needed, so keep sending in your original patent-practice blog submissions or topic suggestions via Brandi at [email protected] . If we publish your blog submission, you'll receive a $25 Amazon gift card.

Seattle Happy Hour

We're organizing a regular meetup for patent practitioners in the Seattle area, starting on Feb 19 from 5:30 to 7:30pm. If you're interested in joining us, or perhaps organizing a local meetup in your area, contact Dan directly or via Brandi at [email protected]

AMC 2019!

Alex is working hard to finalize the roster of speakers for this year's conference in Seattle. We're planning to have the conference agenda completed and registration open by the end of March (if not sooner). We've already had inquiries about the early registration deadline (can you feel the excitement?!) – the deadline for early registration isn't set yet, but it will be no earlier than June 1. Trust me, you'll get plenty of reminders from us. The conference is going to be a joint program with Univ. of Washington's School of Law – details coming soon. But make a note on your calendars if you haven't already: July 22-24, 2019, at the Gates Law Center on the UW Campus. If you're feeling nostalgic for your college days (or just feeling thrifty), we'll have on-campus dorm rooms available for attendees. I've even heard rumors about a toga party on Sunday night.

Forums

You've heard it before: the beta testing continues on the daily/weekly digests, but this time I swear we're nearly done. It's a solution that was custom built for us, so the number of bugs has been higher than expected. We're aiming for an official release on Feb 15. I, for one, am holding my breath. It's definitely going to be worth the wait, I promise!

  Tom Bassolino has volunteered to help moderate the forums, so feel free to drop a message to him, me, or John Davis if you're having issues. We're still looking for another moderator or two to answer questions about how to use the forums and about what posts should go where. Let us know if you can help!

Membership Certificates

Have you been wanting to showcase your NAPP membership? Do you have an empty space on your wall crying out for adornment? You're in luck! When you renew your NAPP membership, you will now have the opportunity to have a formal membership certificate mailed to you at no extra charge. It'll be nice, but not too fancy – we don't want to put your PTO registration certificate to shame.

Public Relations

Reminder – the PR committee is looking for volunteers to help with pitch videos for potential members and educational videos highlighting key practice points that might be made available to the public or fellow practitioners. Even more ambitiously, they're proposing a members-only practice manual or wiki, possibly with templates or sample forms. Mike Carey is starting a collection of written descriptions on how to approach different aspects of patent practice, which we'll then want to curate into a standard form that can grow into the Official NAPP Practice Manual! (Wouldn't you just love to see things like best practices for examiner interviews?!) But to make it happen they are definitely going to need more volunteers. Don't be shy – let us know if you're interested in making NAPP even better!!

Georgia SpringPosium®

If you're looking for a practitioner-friendly event but can't join us at our big event in Seattle, consider the 15th annual IP SpringPosium presented by the Atlanta Bar's IP Section and the Georgia IP Alliance in Gainesville, Georgia, on April 26-27. Our local NAPP representative Anne Fahrni notes that they've created a new "Patent Agent" registration category to encourage more practitioners to attend. From the website: "SpringPosium® is an intellectual property CLE retreat designed to provide in-house and junior lawyers, as well as senior private-practice attorneys and IP service providers, with a convenient and affordable educational and networking opportunity. The CLE programming offers presentations from seasoned professionals on a variety of topics and issues impacting the IP industry. Hosted at Lanier Islands Resort, attendees will enjoy networking with a view during our cocktail reception boat cruise on Lake Lanier followed by a lakeside dinner." https://www.atlantabar.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1195759

Member Survey

Today is the last day of the NAPP Member Survey! Get your responses in if you haven't already. Next month I'll report on the survey results.

Of course, a couple days after the survey went out, we realized that there were some important questions we had omitted regarding a 401(k) plan, a cooperative health plan, an information repository, and generating educational content. Whoops! I guess we'll be sending out another survey in the near future. I apologize for that, but I think these are important projects for the association and we need to know how best to allocate our limited resources. There's plenty of opportunities for any interested volunteers out there, so let us know if you're interested in getting more involved!

Welcome to NAPP!
Finally, we're glad to welcome the following new members who joined in December and January. If you know or encounter any of the following folks on the forums or at a local event, please be sure to welcome them to NAPP and let them know we’re glad to have them on board!

Katrina Bergbauer of Decatur, GA

Stephen Biggs of San Diego, CA

Daryl Fernandez of San Diego, CA

John Fitzgerald of Santa Ana, CA

John Karlen of Rosamond, CA

Daniel Keenan of Ridley Park, PA

Jesse Lambert of Lafayette, LA

Pak Lee of Emeryville, CA

Robert Moore of Newton, MA

Evan Newman of San Diego, CA

William Nilsson of Waco, TX

Jay Pattumudi of Springfield, NJ

Thomas Presson of Frederick, MD

Mark Sincell of Seattle, WA

Rita Sinha-Marsh of New York, NY

Nanae Terazaki of Portland, OR

Matthew Toussant of Columbus, OH

Gouthami Vanam of Woodstock, IL

Yosuke Watanabe of Boise, ID

Pouya Yaghmaie of Portland, OR