Earlier this month, my wife, Shauna, and I were fortunate to attend a performance of at the Boston Opera House. Like many of you, I heard only adulations about the musical before I attended, but was nevertheless blown away by the sheer brilliance of the entire production. How a person reads and from there goes on to produce of the 21st century is mind-boggling. The story was wonderfully told, the music appealing, and the lyrics incredibly clever. It took Lin-Manuliel Miranda over seven years to write the musical. While he certainly deserves the accolades as the mastermind of the production, —dubbed by Miranda as “The Cabinet”—that deserves credit for the peerless and successful musical that resulted.

Likewise, the many successes we can attribute to the Boston Patent Law Association over the course of the past year stems from the collaborative efforts of our members. Over the course of this year we highlighted in this space many successful programs, events, amicus briefs, legislative actions, administrative actions, and other accomplishments of our association and our members. Thank you to everybody who contributed and collaborated over the course of the past year, and in particular our , our , and those other members who volunteered their time to improve our IP community.

Not surprisingly, the BPLA has been active on both the legislative and programming fronts since I last wrote in August. Activity on the legislative front has been twofold. First, following unanimous approval by your Board of Governors, the . This decision was made after careful consideration. The merits of were discussed at length over the course of two Board meetings, a roundtable meeting of BPLA members, and discussions with various leaders within the IPO, AIPLA, and NYIPLA to ensure questions and concerns about the proposal were answered. Ultimately, the Board decided that supporting the Joint Proposal was the best case scenario for implementing changes to a Section 101 that is broken due to inconsistent judicial interpretation.

Second, following up from of the so-called “patent trolls” section of the , we have since been in touch with , the Senate Chairperson of the and proponent of the “patent trolls” cause of action, about being involved in shaping future efforts of this nature. We are in the process of scheduling a meeting with the Senator and/or his Chief of Staff, and welcome any input our members may have about the merits of such legislation. Please if you would like to discuss this issue.

Hopefully many of you were able to attend some of the strong programs we put together for the fall. These included our third annual “Making Connections in Boston’s IP Community” event, which again featured panels of practitioners who work on patents, trademarks, copyrights, and other areas of intellectual property speaking to 100+ attendees (mainly local students), and a collaboration between the BPLA, the , and the in which mock arguments were presented to a judges panel that included , , and .

One program we held which you will not find on the BPLA calendar was an impromptu roundtable discussion with Director , his Senior Advisor Ben Haber, and a diverse group of in-house counsel. The roundtable developed after the Patent Office contacted me on a Monday evening to see if we could put together a group of members to speak with the Director that Wednesday. The Board of Governors, some other members, and some local in-house counsel were contacted to attend the roundtable discussion, which you can . By all accounts, the roundtable discussion was a success.

During our meeting, we will hear from , the Chief Executive Officer of . WiTricity is an engineering company that manufactures devices for wireless energy transfer using resonant energy transfer based on oscillating magnetic fields. Notably, WiTricity is the licensee of one of the . Alex will address the importance of IP and the challenges a start-up company faces as it grows from patented invention to successful company. Our members will surely benefit from hearing these perspectives from a CEO at a company who values IP. Of course, we will also inaugurate our next president of the Association, , elect our next Board of Governors, and vote on proposed changes to the BPLA bylaws.

As I close my last President’s Message, in addition to the earlier thanks I gave to the Board of Governors, committee chairs, and other member volunteers, I want to especially thank our Activities Chair , the staff at Nutter who helped plan and organize events and review and edit various publications (including , , , , , and ), and the BPLA’s Executive Assistant and Web Administrator, . Without their willingness to assist, and in many instances spearhead, any number of tasks, we would not have accomplished nearly as much as we did this year. Indeed, working with all of you made me smarter.

Thank you also to my partners and colleagues at Nutter for graciously allowing me to devote such significant amounts of time to the BPLA over the course of the past seven years, and in particular the past two years. Your support and understanding is appreciated. Lastly, thank you to my family, for also supporting my commitment to the Association through your understanding and willingness to change your schedules to accommodate my ever-shifting one.

I look forward to seeing many of you on Wednesday, December 5, where we can commemorate a successful year of collaborations, and toast our next President!