NAPP eNews™/DECEMBER/2018

NAPP eNews™ for December 2018


December eNews

December?

So, yes, the plan is to provide MONTHLY newsletters, but plans sometimes must give way to life events. Since our house is (finally!) under contract, my spouse and I have been packing and shopping for a new one. Not the worst way to spend thanksgiving break, but I hope you all had more fun than we did!

Save the Date!

NAPP's Annual Meeting will be July 22-24, 2019, at the Gates Law Center on the Univ. of Washington Campus (in Seattle). If you're feeling nostalgic for your college days (or just feeling thrifty), we'll have on-campus dorm rooms available for attendees. Alex Pokot is lining up topics, speakers, and social events as we speak, so reach out to him or Brandi ([email protected]) if you have suggestions or want to volunteer! I'm looking forward to seeing everybody who can make it.

Public Relations

In addition to pitch videos for potential members, the PR committee is considering 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!!

Membership Drive

Speaking of volunteers, perhaps the best way to increase our number of volunteers is to increase our membership pool! The bulk of our members are solos or small firm practitioners (which is awesome), but most patent practitioners work for large firms or companies. We are interested in trying to increase our appeal to this group. To that end, we are offering a 10% membership discount to firms or companies with multiple NAPP members, and we'll be making contact with companies and firms having multiple practitioners to let them know about this opportunity. We're also open to other ideas, so let us hear from you! Contact Dan Krueger or Brandi ([email protected]).

Oh yeah! We're also reaching out to students of USPTO-certified Law School Clinics and Patent Bar Study courses offering free 1yr student memberships. We're also interested in reaching out to law and engineering schools, so spread the word!

Oakland

Steve Vosen, who has organized some well-attended meetups in Oakland, is now passing the baton to Connie Ramos. If you're in the East Bay area, watch for emails from her and maybe even offer to help her out! She's very excited about developing an active patent practitioner community in the area.

Atlanta

Speaking of active communities, thanks again to the Patent Agent Club and IP section of the Atlanta Bar for the invitation to speak! I learned some interesting stuff as I prepared my presentation about whether preparing assignments qualifies as Unauthorized Practice of Law for patent agents and out-of-state patent attorneys, and we had a lively discussion after the talk. The presentation isn't quite ready for a nationwide audience, but I hope to do a video for the website after I get a chance to update it.

Diversity Initiative

And on that theme of presentations, NAPP hosted a webinar from Tru Pettigrew last month, which many of you were able to attend. I'm sorry to have missed it, especially since we received so much positive feedback, but I was counting on there being a recording of the event that I could watch later. Apparently there was some miscommunication about the recording, so I and the other non-attendees are out of luck. Bummer! But given the level of positive feedback, we'll include more webinars for our members on the agenda for next year. If you have suggestions, let us know via Brandi at [email protected].

Forums

I know many of us have sorely missed the daily or weekly digests of forum posts that we had on the Yahoo! system. It's taken far longer than it should have, but we've got a solution in beta testing right now and will make it available to everybody in the coming weeks.

Upcoming Projects

I believe I mentioned that there will be a member survey going out in January. Among other things, we'll be trying to assess the level of interest in having NAPP offer a 401(k) plan, a cooperative health plan, an information repository, and generating educational content. Our resources are limited so we're being forced to prioritize. We want to know what you think, so please take time to fill out the survey.

NAPP's Blog for Patent Practitioners

NAPP's blog has been moved to a new platform on Medium.com. In the process, the dates have all gotten reset, but hopefully you will note and appreciate Ed Ryan's blog about conditional language in claims, and the newest blog about representing joint inventors. Check them out when you get a chance: https://medium.com/napp

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.

Welcome to NAPP!
We gained the following new members in October and November. 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!

 

-Kendra Ankrum of Nampa, Idaho

-Michael Bendel of Appleton, Wisconsin 

-Jason DeMont of Phoenix, Arizona

Joshua Fruchter of Monsey, New York

-Dixon Hammer of Boise, Idaho

-Colin Honan of Boise, Idaho

-Matthew Johnson of San Diego, California

-Na Mi Kwak of Fairfax, Virginia 

-Yida Li of Minneapolis, Minnesota 

-Michael Matuson of Knoxville, Tennessee 

-Peter McFadden of Tucson, Arizona

-Erika Melanson of Meridian, Idaho

-Michael Milazzo of Centennial, Colorado

-Jason Moore of Boise, Idaho

-Marvin Moore of Fayetteville, Georgia

-Daniel Naftalovich of Tenafly, New Jersey

-Claire Olavarria of Boise, Idaho

-Kenneth Ottesen of Morristown, New Jersey

-Elisheva Patterson of Tucson, Arizona

-Mallam Prior of Boise, Idaho

-Robert Turner of Melrose, Massachusetts

-Mariana Vernieri of Boca Raton, Florida

-Walker Weitzel of Winthrop, Washington

-Kirk Wilson of Simpsonville, South Carolina

-John Wood of Johnson City, Tennessee