The BPLA Legislative Committee is no longer — it is now as a full-fledged BPLA committee! As provided in the charter, Legislative Committee focuses on legislation at both the State and Federal level that has an impact on intellectual property prosecution, licensing and enforcement. The Committee monitors pending and proposed legislation and holds meetings and events to inform and educate members. When appropriate, the Committee, or a working group of the Committee, will conduct reviews and propose positions on legislation for consideration by the Board.

On February 26, 2020, the Legislative Committee held an organizational lunch meeting to discuss its focus for the coming year. After commencing with a welcome and introductions, the Committee reviewed the BPLA’s legislative activities from 2019, which focused on providing input to the Massachusetts State Legislature on bad faith patent assertion legislation and input to Congress on patent subject matter eligibility. The Committee co-chairs (Myron Kassaraba, Erik Belt and Deirdre Sanders) then led the group then turned to identifying 2020 potential initiatives, and possible working group formation.

Potential 2020 topics included:

• Patent Subject Matter Eligibility
• STRONGER Patents Act and other pending DC legislation
• IP in the Drug Pricing debate (e.g., march-in rights, mandatory licensing)
• Potential congressional resolution regarding the constitutionality question about appointment of APJs.
• Other potential topics include ITC & SEP patents, AI patent eligibility, data use and rights.

The Committee welcomes new members who have an interest in these or other topics and would like to get involved in investigating these topics, tracking legislation, developing programming for BPLA events and providing recommendations to the Board or Membership on possible letters of support of positions to communicate.

For more information about the committee, please feel free to contact the Legislative Committee at