Table of Contents
Open Community Calendar
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Message from the President Keith Toms
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Message from the Editor
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Non-Traditional Pharmaceutical Trade Marks – Position Marks
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China IP Update: First Successful Patent Invalidation in China Based on “No Foreign Filing License”
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Inhouse Committee Meetings Summary
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Save the Date - Invented Here!
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Jonathan Barnett gives talk on “How Patents Drive Innovation and Growth: Insights from the Biotech and Semiconductor Industries”
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UPCA Overview
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List of Officers and Board of Governors and Committees
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Job Listings
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Dear esteemed colleagues,
Thank you for your interest in our Summer 2022 Edition of the BPLA Newsletter, and welcome to any new members!
This quarter’s newsletter again offers thoughts across a variety of topics. We delve into non-traditional pharma trademarks, an IP in China update, and a UPCA overview. From the BPLA subcommittees, the Legislative Committee offered their presentation on how patents drive innovation, and the Inhouse Practice Committee has provided their meeting summary.
I would once again like to thank my Associate Editor, Erin McGuine, the BPLA’s terrific administrator, Constance Brennan, and the staff of Readz for their help in preparing this newsletter. If you have suggestions, requests, or submissions for a future issue, please feel free to reach out to me at vice-president@bpla.org.
In our last edition, we conducted a survey asking “Do you support changing the name of the Association to a name that encompasses all Intellectual Property?” and if so “Please share your thoughts for a suitable alternative name.” Of course, many of us conduct consumer surveys as part of our job, and this one would clearly not pass muster in a court of law. But it is still interesting. We received 64 responses to the first question, 64% in favor, 28% opposed, and 8% undecided. For those who did favor a change and offered a proposed name, the top vote-getter was Boston Intellectual Property Law Association, with Boston IP Law Association coming in second, and no other name receiving more than one vote.
Again, given how unscientific the survey was, I think we can take little more from it than a likelihood that a solid plurality favor a name change, and that there are still a few that don’t. As my practice is primarily Lanham Act, I favor a name change, but some of the open responses to the survey we received made me more certain than ever that we need one. Three of those that opposed did so based on a belief that we should favor patent law over other forms of intellectual property, and that our name reflects patent law’s primacy. And there it is—the misunderstanding about our organization’s inclusive approach that is created, permitted, and even fostered by the disconnect between our moniker and our mission. I believe it is time we put an end to that disconnect, and after much deliberation by the Open Naming Committee and the Board, proudly support doing so by changing our great organization’s name to the Boston Intellectual Property Law Association. I hope you’ll join me.
Josh Dalton
Editor