Dear colleagues,

Welcome to the Winter 2020 Edition of the BPLA Newsletter. We are once again excited to bring to you a number of articles from our community of IP practitioners, especially in this time of disruption.

This edition features a summary of the BPLA’s brief submitted to the Supreme Court in , an article from USPTO Director Iancu on underrepresented groups in patenting, a synopsis of the winning paper from the 2019 writing competition, and a guide to best practices for searching chemical patents.

We also have recaps and pictures from many of our wonderful winter events, including Making Connections, the Diversity and Inclusion Roundtable, the Legislative Committee’s meeting, and Case Law Club’s discussion of the case.

Finally, I’d like to welcome our new Foreign Counsel members. And, as a reminder, if you know a foreign attorney who might be interested in joining the BPLA, we encourage you to share with them President Bergman’s enthusiastic welcome letter, which you can download from this issue of the newsletter.

Keith Toms Editor-in-Chief