The BPLA will get another chance to interact with Washington . We will present of the with the , and I have asked Judge Moore to address the BPLA at that time. I hope you will come to help honor our federal judges and hear Judge Moore’s remarks. The dinner will be held at the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in the Seaport district. Details on sponsorship opportunities, registration, and logistics will follow shortly.

From left to right: Keith Toms, BPLA Activities and Public Relations Chairperson and Partner at McCarter & English; Michelle Lee, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO; Bridget Petruczok, USPTO, Deputy Chief of Staff; and Bill Scally, Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Photo courtesy of USPTO.

Finally, I am sure that you have seen, as I have, that patents have been under attack in recent years. For example, a bill recently filed in the Senate, identified as the , seeks to limit venue in patent infringement cases. One new provision will confine infringement actions to “where the defendant has committed an act of infringement of a patent in suit and has a regular and established physical facility that gives rise to the act of infringement.” A provision like this will make it substantially harder and more expensive to enforce patents, particularly for small businesses and solo inventors. Indeed, a provision like this could mean that some infringers, such as foreign companies, could not be sued anywhere in this country. Any law that makes it more expensive or more difficult to enforce patents ultimately weakens patents and thus the incentives to innovate. I thus urge all of you to speak up, make your voices heard in Washington so that the nation’s leaders understand that they should leave patents alone for a while. The BPLA will certainly be doing so in its official capacity. You can also get involved with the BPLA’s , which is seeking volunteers to submit amicus briefs in current Supreme Court and Federal Circuit cases that will shape patent law for years to come, , which periodically submits comments related to proposed rules changes, or the Legislative Task Force, which is working to evaluate the best ways to respond to proposed changes in the law, like the aforementioned Venue Equity and Non-Uniformity Elimination Act of 2016. If you want to get involved in any of these initiatives, please feel free to contact the Amicus Committee at , the Patent Office Practice Committee at , the chair of the Legislative Task Force, at , or me at .