Co-Chairs George Jakobsche and Nicholas Zachariades then led a rollcall of this year’s fourteen Honorees, during which each had an opportunity to give the audience a brief presentation of their respective inventions and how the inventions improve the human condition. Following the rollcall of Honoree, this year’s four Featured Honorees were called up to a virtual stage for a fireside chat with our celebrity interviewer, Ms. Carey Goldberg, Boston Bureau Chief of Bloomberg News. During the fireside chat, Ms. Goldberg led the Featured Honorees through discussions about their respective inventions in detail through probing and interesting questions. Beyond the details of the inventions, the Featured Honorees also explained how their inventions improve the human condition. Members of the audience submitted questions, including a question about whether a mentor helped the Featured Honorees along their career paths, which illuminated stories behind the inventions.

Following the interview with the Featured Honorees, Mr. Solomon expressed sincere appreciation for Ms. Goldberg’s participation and said that the presentations by the Honorees and Featured Honorees were “Inspiring!” Mr. Solomon then welcomed Director Dougherty of the EROO of the USPTO up to the virtual stage, where she expressed congratulatory remarks for all of the inventors who participated and thanked the members of the BPLA for running such an important recognition event. She further thanked the BPLA for allowing the EROO to participate. Following concluding remarks, the members of the audience returned to networking at the virtual Remo tables, where they had an opportunity to congratulate the Honorees and Featured Honorees.

Our sponsors this year included (in alphabetical order): Burns Levinson, Greenberg Traurig, Hamilton Brook Smith Reynolds, Mintz, Northeastern University Center for Research Innovation, Nutter, Robins Kaplan, Sunstein, and Wolf Greenfield. Our community sponsors included the USPTO, MassVentures, The eForum, MassBio, North Shore Technology Council, Greentown Labs, UMass Lowell M2D2, Invent New England, MassMEDIC, and Suffolk University Law School. Special thanks to Constance Brennan (BPLA website administrator) and Coreen Cordeiro, Judy White, Anita Joyce, and Kristine Ferrigno of Hamilton Brook Smith Reynolds for their tremendous logistical and administrative support of the Event. Technical support of the videoconferencing platform, Remo, used for the Event was provided by Mr. Matthew Perkins and team of R.E.P.S. Events LLC (Remote Event Planning Strategists). This was another year of inspiring stories and education about patented science and technology inventions that were invented here in the First Circuit. We look forward to honoring our innovation community again during next year's Invented Here! Celebratory Event, A window for submitting rolling nominations will open soon. Stay tuned…