I am flying to London for a rush trip in a couple of hours, so may be tardy in authorizing further responses, but please send them.

If you are right, this explains the membership drive and the delay. It also explains why I am not receiving details of events. It is by chance that I heard about yesterday’s meeting. It could be that there are stil problems with email lists, although with a maximum possibility of 300 members, mostly common to AIPPI and the patent office; it shouldn’t be that difficult to keep everyone informed.

Indeed, my criticism regarding the relative inactivity of the organization and the fact that from time to time I learn about committee meetings with the Commissioner of Patents after the event, instead of before, preventing myself and others from raising issues via the organization may be similarly unfounded. Maybe the organization holds regular events and there is simply a communication problem.

I received the following explanation for the change in date of the GM.

I think it would be fair for you to publish this explanation in your blog.

There was a reason for the delay given and it is that due to a mailing list error there were patent attorneys who did not receive the meeting summons. This was, unfortunately, discovered only 1 day before the originally planned meeting. The postponement was in fact Ilan Cohn’s proposal which was adopted by the Committee of the association in order to give an opportunity to timely mail the summons to all members. There was also another good reason in that in review of the by-laws it was realized that only paid members can vote. While 100% of the RC members paid, it was not so in other offices.