NAPP's MONTHLY MEMBER NEWS - AUGUST 2022

NAPP President's Message

NAPP held its 25th Annual Meeting and Conference (AMC) in July 2022. Almost 100 AMC attendees furthered their professional development and made professional connections. NAPP will hold its 26th AMC in July 2023 in Alexandria, Virginia.

During the AMC, the NAPP membership elected new board members. Patent agents Joel Douglas and Dan Smith joined the board as new board members, and patent attorney John T. Davis rejoined the board for a new term. Each board member serves a three (3) year term. We express our deepest gratitude to the following outgoing NAPP board members for their hard work and dedication in fulfilling their 2019-2022 terms: Tom Bassolino of Bass Patent Law, LLC, and Lisa Adelson of Praxis Medicines,

Committee chairs were appointed for the 2022-23 years. The committees will work to provide networking, education, collegial exchange, benefits, and a collective voice in patent law practice. We’re excited about how NAPP’s committees will accelerate specific projects, including delivering member benefits, increasing membership engagement, and executing NAPP’s strategic plan.

Whether you’re a patent agent, solo practitioner, or law firm member, I encourage you to volunteer as a committee member or leader. Committee work is where NAPP comes alive. It’s an excellent opportunity to take a leadership position, develop professionally, collaborate with colleagues, and impact the patent profession. For example:

• The Professional Development committee is looking to offer educational content for NAPP members beyond the AMC offering. If you are looking for ways to become more engaged with the NAPP activities this is a great way to provide input on member professional development options, work with NAPP leaders, connect with members and add value to NAPP membership. Interested members should contact committee chair Anne Fahrni or Karen Miles ([email protected]).

NAPP is looking forward to serving its membership and engaging members to make an impact in the patent profession.

Thanks. Chris.

AMC 2023 PLANNING COMMITTEE

NAPP’s AMC Planning Committee is currently reviewing venues for the 2023 conference in Old Town Alexandria, VA and locations for the 2024 conference. Once finalized the committee will begin planning the program for next year. If you are interested in assisting the committee with program development, please contact Karen Miles ([email protected]). Monthly commitment is typically 1 - 2 hours dedicated to a planning call and a few follow up communications to potential speakers or sponsors.

CASE SUMMARIES

To help our members stay up to date, NAPP’s Case Analysis Team is reviewing recent opinions that are relevant to patent prosecution practice. Over the past two years, we’ve posted short summaries of over 200 opinions, which we’ve also distilled into “Take home lessons” on everything from “abstract ideas” under 101 to the ways court determine whether the specification provides sufficient “written description”. If the summaries tweak your interest or you want to better understand the contours of the take-home lessons, you can follow this link to the full opinions. We encourage you to make sure you’re “Following” the “Lessons from Case Law” forum if you receive the forum summary emails and/or make sure you stop by next time you’re on the forum website and “Browse” your way to the Lessons forum.

COLORADO MEETUP

The Colorado local meetup host monthly meetings every 3rd Wednesday from 7 - 8 PM MT. The next meeting is scheduled Wednesday, September 21 and the topic is “Inventorship”.

Meeting Details:
Join: https://meet.google.com/dhw-jjkr-sdk
US) +1 929-260-4438
PIN: 135024863#

NAPP FORUM 

Have you signed into the NAPP Forum lately? Checkout the current hot topics:

• Patent Drafting: https://forum.napp.org/topic/3003-claim-language-describing-wheels-in-relation-to-rails/

• Patent Prosecution: https://forum.napp.org/topic/2995-amendment-after-restriction/

The Forum is a great online resource and includes a very interactive member community. This is a member benefit and requires different login credentials than your NAPP member information. Please contact the NAPP office at [email protected] if you are having trouble accessing the site.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR NAPP's GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE

The Governance Committee is reorganizing, with a goal to promote volunteer opportunities and facilitate member participation. This committee project could potentially transform NAPP into every patent practitioner's organization of choice. If you want to be involved in this transformative effort, please contact Dan Krueger or Karen Miles ([email protected]).  

HELP WANTED! MEMBER SURVEY ASSISTANCE

We are looking for a patent agent in a solo practice or small practice of patent agents to help with creating a survey of our agent members. This should involve no more than about 2-4 hours of your time. We want to understand what the needs are for our patent agent members for professional liability insurance, because agents do not have ready access to professional malpractice insurance like patent attorneys do as an attorney. As we understand, there are only a couple national professional liability insurance companies offering malpractice insurance to patent agents. Is this enough? do our members need more options? do these companies meet all our patent agent members’ needs? what else do we need to know here? - if interested , please contact Mike Bendel, NAPP Program Committee Chair at [email protected]. Thank you to those who have already responded via the Forum, we will be in touch soon. 

CALL FOR NAPP MENTORS AND MENTEES

NAPP's Programs Committee is seeking mentors to guide our less experienced members forward on their career trajectory. We're looking for experience, not expertise; someone who can provide newly registered practitioners with a sense of the profession. Mentors must be NAPP members with 10 or more years of patent prosecution experience. Meeting arrangements can vary, but often 1hr/month is enough. (If you're wondering how this is a member benefit, let me say I've really benefited from my experience coaching a mentee and wondering why I haven't followed my own advice.) Interested Members should contact the NAPP Office ([email protected]) to obtain a copy of the NAPP Mentoring Program Agreement and Guidelines. The signed agreements will be forwarded to the Mentoring Committee for approval and matching in due course. We are especially in need of Mentors in the Chemical and Biological Arts. Help us reach our goal! To date, we have matched all mentees requesting a mentor, and we have room for more mentees. Could you benefit from his? It is as formal or informal as you would like it to be. Tap into the expertise of your NAPP colleagues, and help accelerate up your learning curve and make practice more enjoyable.

NAPP's BLOG

NAPP's Professional Development Committee is posting monthly blog articles containing longer discussions of interesting patent practice topics relevant to your practice, which you can find on the napp.org website under "Blog". The PDC is always soliciting new articles, so if you've recently done a deep dive on a patent practice issue, share your expertise with your fellow members! You'll gain name recognition, and we'll even sweeten the deal with an Amazon gift card! Send your submissions to the NAPP Office at [email protected]