Patent Prosecution Program
Mark your calendars! NAPP's annual meeting and conference for patent prosecution professionals will be held July 19-21, 2018, at the Alexandria USPTO (600 Dulany St). For novice practitioners wanting to learn the essentials of patent prosecution and running a patent practice, there will also be a pre-conference "Nuts & Bolts" workshop on July 18 at the Residence Inn in Old Town Alexandria. The conference is the highlight event of the year for NAPP, so I encourage you to be there if you can! Registration will be opening up later this month.
NAPP's Blog for Patent Practitioners
The Professional Development Committee working to launch our new blog. They’ve compiled a list of topic that have seemed interesting to members in the past and now we are looking for volunteers to write on these topics (or other patent-practice topics you may wish to discuss). If you're looking for an easy way to share your experiences or increase your exposure with colleagues, drop an email to Priya Cloutier directly ([email protected]) or via our executive director ([email protected] ). You can also drop suggestions into the "Idea Box" on our website.
World IP Day 26 April
The annual celebration of World IP Day is on the 26th of April, which this year is on a Thursday. NAPP's Professional Development committee is looking for suggestions and opportunities for NAPP members to reach out to the community to educate the public and other professionals about the value of the patent system and experienced patent prosecutors. Anybody with suggestions or time to volunteer for a presentation at a local school, please reach out to Priya Cloutier or our Executive Director Brandi Gerew at [email protected].
Committee Chair Positions Available
You may recall that David Stein has stepped down as chair of the Government Affairs committee, and Jeff Wendt is planning to step down as chair of the Legal committee. Both are planning to remain as members of those committees, but are asking for other volunteers to take charge of the organizational aspects of the committee work. If any NAPP members are interested in joining these committees as members or chairs, please let David Stein or Jeff Wendt know directly or via our executive director at [email protected].
Local Meetups
To add to the usual meetups in Denver, Houston, Santa Clara, and Seattle, the folks in Atlanta, Buffalo, Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, and now Oakland, are getting local meetups organized. If you're interested in any of these meetups, or curious about setting up your own, please contact Mike Carey, either directly or via our executive director at [email protected] .
New Platform Migration
Woohoo! Our Executive Director has been busy getting the website shifted over to the new membership platform. We had a couple of bumps, and the renewal forms were suspended for a week while we did the move, but we're now on the new platform. If you encounter any difficulties with renewals or signing up for the annual conference, please let us know! Also, please report anything else that doesn't work or seems out-of-place, as we really want to bullet-proof the new website as much as possible. We'll be doing some in-house testing too, but we're already looking toward the next steps.
Forum Report
The forums continue to be our top priority! The plan is to start with creating committee forums this month and having the NAPP committees do some final testing for a couple of weeks before we open up the forum platform to our full membership. We've already received requests to set up a couple of forums specifically for the local meetup groups, so I know many of you share my excitement about the new forum platform. We're almost there folks!!
Renewal Date Synchronization
Note that soon after we complete the forum migration, we will begin synchronizing the future membership renewal deadlines to a fixed date (probably July 1, 2019). By arranging a common renewal date for all our members, we hope to make the budgeting process easier for the organization, as well as simplifying our reminder/renewal/follow up procedures. More news will be forthcoming on this front, as we decide how best to handle the transition.
Welcome to NAPP! We gained three new members in February. 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!
-Daniel Dubuisson of Boulder, CO
-Shankar Ghimire of Fairfax, VA
-Steven Sponseller of Spokane WA
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