AIPLA Committee Report and Workplan
DATE: 17 April 2015
MEETING: Mid-winter Meeting
COMMITTEE NAME: Public Education
COMMITTEE LEADERSHIP: Michael Stewart and Elise Selinger
DISCUSS THE OVERALL MISSION OF THE COMMITTEE AS IT RELATES TO AIPLA’s VISION, MISSION, and
VALUES:
The Public Education Committee maintains a mission to educate the general public as to the meaning of
intellectual property and its potential value, and promotes cooperation on this effort with the rest of the
IP community, while pursuing similar goals and objectives with other AIPLA Committees.
PROJECTS:
Plans for stated meetings:

The WIPD events are already underway and we have doubled the number of cities again for this
year. We had even more cities express interest, but as in the past there was natural attrition,
and we have developed some models this year (school and organizational partnerships) that will
likely interest more cities in the future. The cities as of today’s date are as follows:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Atlanta
Austin
Boston
Chicago
Dallas
DC (PTO’s anniversary)
Delaware
Detroit
Denver
Houston
Indianapolis
Minneapolis
Northern California
Raleigh/Durham NC
Portland
St. Louis
Cities expressing initial interest with events that did not end up going forward
o Columbus
o Philadelphia
o Los Angeles





Continue to develop liaisons with other committees to be able to share information and
resources between the public education committee and other AIPLA committees.
o The Trademark Committee will most likely be taking ownership of the TM Expo this fall
with assistance from the Public Education Committee
o We have been working with the Fellows and New Lawyers Committee to provide
speakers to assist the USPTO in university presentations as discussed below.
o The IP Law Associations Committee will continue to act as a resource at least for World
IP Day.
Continue to develop presentations geared to adults now that our presentations for youth are
complete and are being used.
Advertise the availability of public education resources by speaking at meetings of other AIPLA
committees and seeking input on how public education can best assist these committees.
o Presentations have been made to various committees including Corporate Practice and
the Women in IP Breakfast and we look forward to continuing and expanding those
partnerships in the future.
Discuss complete revamp of “CREATIVITY IN BLOOM” web site so that it includes more timely
and complete materials including information available from other committees that would be of
interest to the general public.
o We have two volunteers to help work on the site, but getting assistance from AIPLA has
been challenging. More resources are needed to move ahead with this project.
Continue to develop relationships with third party organizations such as the USPTO to find
opportunities to leverage the skills of our members in their local communities such as through
turnkey speaking opportunities.
o Members of the New Lawyer Committee and the Fellows have been speaking at select
universities throughout the United States with members of the USPTO this Spring to
educate students on the importance of intellectual property. We were able to locate
members in close proximity to the universities of interest. We hope to increase this
partnership in the fall.
o The fellows have offered possible financial support to help facilitate speaking
opportunities. One possibility is to use such support for student members so that they
can work with Fellows with respect to speaking opportunities involving the USPTO and
provide a different perspective than the Fellows as individuals transitioning into the
practice of intellectual property.
Plans for coordination between stated meetings: The committee has had an exchange of e-mails and a
number of telephone conferences with committee and AIPLA members concerning various topics of
interest including preparation for World IP Day 2015.
Plans for communication with the committee clusters/board liaisons:
ADVOCACY: We have actually been more involved in advocacy than one might expect in terms of trying
to clarify and address misconceptions that people have about the value and importance of intellectual
property. It seems as if there is a greater hostility to intellectual property and yet when we show how
intellectual property can be valuable at an individual level, it resonates with our audiences (e.g., the
importance of using copyright to protect t-shirt designs as discussed at the Detroit satellite office at a
recent Saturday presentation)
PUBLIC EDUCATION: We are going to be working very hard to develop liaisons with other committees
in the coming year. Liaisons have been identified for at least the following committees:
Jeremy Blackowicz, Trademark Committee
Danielle Coleman, New Lawyer’s Committee
Edgardo Mantilla, FDA Committee
Salvatore Anastasi, Fellows
Jenna Rea, Women in IP Law Committee
Darlene Ghavimi, Patent Litigation Committee
We could use assistance in getting more liaisons. Please note that Bea Koempel-Thomas is now the
Chair of the Subcommittee to work with our Liaisons.
MEMBER SERVICE: We have been advertising the value of AIPLA at our various presentations for the
public and will be exploring presentation opportunities in conjunction with third party partners such as
the USPTO with more of our members.
GLOBAL OUTREACH: We met with the Michel Gerin, Executive Director, Intellectual Property Institute
of Canada, at the AIPPI . We offered to share resources regarding World IP Day with his organization for
2015. We also had discussions with members of organizations of other countries to discuss how to
leverage work we do for the benefit of other organizations. In December Elise and Michael had a
telephone conference with members of the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada. While they did not
partner with us for WIPD 2015, there may be opportunities for 2016. Outreach in a knowledge-sharing
capacity with other countries is possible as well in the future.
Chair of World IP Day subcommittee: Daniel Brownstone
Chair of Liaison Subcommittee: Bea Koempel-Thomas