National Association of Patent Practitioners Annual Meeting

PRESS RELEASE:

The National Association of Patent Practitioners (NAPP) held its annual meeting and conference and elected a new slate of officers and directors July 18-21 in San Diego, CA.

On Saturday, July 18, the NAPP held a CLE approved “Nuts and Bolts” prosecution seminar for attendees covering topics including Inventorship; Searching; Claiming; Drawings; Combating obviousness rejections; Examiner interviews; Allowance, Issue and Term extension; Knowledge tools; and Building your practice. Speakers included Stan Antolin of Smith & Moore, Kevin Prince of QuickPatents, Inc., David Grossman of George Mason University, Misha Oljaca of Enpaso, Ron Rohde of Carr & Ferrell, Louis Hoffman of the Hoffman Patent Firm, Barclay Tullis of Novelthink and Ron Reardon of Patents & More, Inc.

On Sunday, at the annual business meeting, the following slate of Officers and Directors were elected:

Ron Reardon is president of Patents & More, Inc. Fred Zustak is Director of Operations for the Intellectual Property Dept. of Sony Corp. of America in San Diego. Jackie Hartt is a Patent Agent with Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor & Reed, PA. Joshua Schoonover is founding partner with Coastal Patent Agency in San Diego. Stan Antolin is a member of the Smith & Moore firm in Greensboro, NC. Kevin Grierson is with GSB legal Counsel working out of Hampton, VA. David Grossman is the Sr. Licensing Associate with the Office of Technology Transfer at George Mason University. Louis Hoffman is principle of the Hoffman Law Firm of Phoenix, AZ. Jerry Miller is President of Miller Patent Services of Raleigh, NC.

On Monday and Tuesday July 20 and 21, a wide range of topics were covered in the annual “Patent Practice Update” including: How to prevent a finding of inequitable conduct; Prosecution disclaimer and its relationship to prosecution history estoppel; Innovators view of innovation; Federal Circuit update; Invention analysis and claiming; Rule changes in practicing before the patent office; International patent prosecution, Foreign filing strategies, PCT, and Preparing a global patent application; Living and even prospering with KSR at the patent office, Applying an industrial age test to information age innovations under 35 USC 101, Obviating KSR obviousness rejections; Reexamination proceedings post KSR; and Hot topics at the BPAI. These topics were presented by a distinguished list of speakers including Debra Anderson of the Bernstein Law Firm; Edward Marshall of Edward Marshall IP Law; Louis Forman, Creator, Executive Producer and Lead Judge of The Everyday Edisons® televsision show; Paul Lerner, Senior VP and General Counsel of General Patents Corp.; Gene Quinn, President and Founder of IP Watchdog; Samson Helfgott, Partner and Director of Patents for Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP; Steven Parmalee of Fitch Even Tabin & Flannery; Steven Korniczky of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, LLP; John Rogitz of Rogitz & Associates; Bruce Stoner of Greenblum & Bernstein, P.L.C.; and Bill Smith of Woodcock Washborn. CLE Credit was also available for the “Patent Practice Update”.

Full bios of the speakers and officers as well as additional information on NAPP and the annual meeting program are available at www.napp.org.

The NAPP is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting patent practitioners and those working in the field of patent law in matters relating to patent law, its practice and technological advances. For more information, visit www.napp.org.