2020

Influential Women

Celebrating the best and brightest

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:‘Bro culture’

Silicon Valley’s
worst-kept secret

Hidden stigma

Are D&I initiatives leaving
disability behind?

The great exodus
Why are minorities
leaving law?

www.worldipreview.com

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WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
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Editor’s Note

3

WIPR INFLUENTIAL WOMEN IN IP 2020

2020

Influential Women

Celebrating the best and brightest

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:‘Bro culture’

Silicon Valley’s
worst-kept secret

Hidden stigma

Are D&I initiatives leaving
disability behind?

The great exodus
Why are minorities
leaving law?

A NEWTON MEDIA PUBLICATION

www.worldipreview.com

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WIPR is a registered trademark of Newton Media Ltd

The good work
must go on
I began this project in the hope of doing my part to celebrate the work women
have done, and will continue to do, in the IP sector.
We published the inaugural issue in early 2019, a landmark year for womenin law. It marked the centenary since women were allowed to become barristers
and solicitors in the UK. Calls for gender diversity echoed across the industry,
carried along by the #MeToo movement.
But diversity comes in many different forms, and some are less visible thanothers, so it’s time we shone a spotlight on these too. That’s why, in our second
edition, we’re focusing on more than just gender diversity.
That’s not to say gender equality in IP has been ‘achieved’—we still need tofight for it. Alongside our features, we highlight 100 Influential Women in IP,
who are all playing a significant role in championing diversity and changing
the IP system.
The people we’ve spoken to within these pages have stories to tell, both goodand bad, and all have been open with us. It is only by making voices heard canwe, as an industry, change for the better.
We put together this publication amid the COVID-19 pandemic, during
which black, Asian and minority ethnic people have topped the list of thosedying from the virus.
Without forgetting the amazing work done by frontline workers andvolunteers, it’s important to focus on how this global healthcare crisis has
upended our working lives. The lines between work and life have become
increasingly blurred, and caring responsibilities and mental health are being
talked about more than ever before.
But what worries me is whether diversity and inclusion (D&I) issues arebeing placed on the back burner as budgets tighten and focus turns solely to
immediate needs, at the expense of long-term objectives. There’s precedent—
diversity in law firms took a huge hit after the financial collapse of 2008. It’s
crucial that this isn’t allowed to happen again.
I’m not the only one with these concerns—law firms and organisationscommitted to promoting D&I are raising the alarm, through partnerships andopen letters.
The current healthcare crisis could truly be the ultimate test for D&I in
the legal profession, and it’s incumbent on everyone in the industry to playtheir role.
Sarah Morgan, editor

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

4

Contents

www.worldipreview.com

5

The pressing need for equality

6

Positive strides

10

Protecting the entrepreneurial spirit

12

Silicon Valley’s ‘bro culture’: faulty pipeline, or old fashioned misogyny?

16

In the spotlight

20

Class of 2019: Spring Chang

22

The hidden stigma

28

Class of 2019: Laura Collada

32

Reclaiming language: are IP offices behind the times?

36

A culture of growth and equality

42

Class of 2020: Vivien Chan

45

Evolving inclusivity—designing a modern platform for success for all

46

The great exodus

50

Doing it for herself—and others

52

Friends in D&I places

56

The best advice

58

Finding your own voice

60

Trailblazers: a bright future

Increasing diversity and achieving gender equality are more important than ever as
we face the COVID-19 pandemic, says Francis Gurry, director general of the WIPO.
WIPR’s latest survey on diversity and inclusion in law offers a snapshot of an industry
that’s behind the times. Sarah Morgan reports.
Becoming an entrepreneur is not an easy route to take, but when you’re an
indigenous woman, it can be even tougher, as Sarah Morgan finds.
The tech industry has started to acknowledge its problem with sexism and diversity,and is publishing more data, but is any real progress being made? Rory O’Neill reports.
WIPR celebrates the achievements of 80 of the most prominent female lawyers in
the industry.
Spring Chang has played a central role in the growth of her firm, Chang Tsi & Partners,
and is proud of its successes in promoting diversity.
Diversity initiatives are gaining traction across the legal profession, but one characteristic
has been left behind: disability. Sarah Morgan investigates what can be done.
Laura Collada, managing partner of Dumont, outlines her path to modernising the
Mexican law firm and her diversity efforts.
What happens when the meaning of traditionally offensive or abusive terms changes,
and how should IP offices respond? Rory O’Neill reports.
Borghildur Erlingsdóttir, director general of the Icelandic Intellectual Property Office,sees massive opportunities at a time when Iceland’s economy is at a turning point.
Vivien Chan helps major multinational corporations and listed companies to dobusiness in Greater China.
The categorisation of individuals due to gender, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation
doesn’t encourage equality, says Karen Fraser of UDL Intellectual Property.
Bullying, a dearth of opportunities and lower pay are just some of the reasons why
the legal profession is bleeding its minority groups. Sarah Morgan investigates.
After a career beginning with a dramatic trial and two decades of experience,
Stacy Grossman decided to strike out on her own.
Creating a diversity culture at work needs allies who aren’t afraid to get a little
uncomfortable, as Tom Phillips discovers.
WIPR spoke to some of the 2019 Class of Trailblazers about their advice for thoseentering the IP profession and the challenges they’ve overcome.
Gender equality should continue to be a driving force in law firms across the world,says Melisa Litvin, founder of Litvin Marzorati Legales.
WIPR profiles 20 talented women who are paving the way for great achievements in
the IP sector.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

Forewordwww.worldipreview.com

5

The pressing
need for equality

As the world deals with the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing diversity and achieving
gender equality is even more important, says Francis Gurry, director general of theWorld Intellectual Property Organization.
t is my great pleasure to contribute a
few words of introduction to WorldIntellectual Property Review’s “Influential
Women in IP” publication.
IP exists to encourage innovation and creativity,
which stimulate improvements in our quality of lifeand provide opportunities to confront and overcome
systemic challenges. Without gender equality, however,humanity is sadly missing out on realising its fullinnovative and creative potential.
With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic,
increasing diversity and achieving gender equality iseven more important: humankind needs all hands
on deck in the fight against this pathogen. New
treatments, therapeutics and, hopefully, a vaccine areanxiously awaited by the global public.

I

Numbers matter

SHUTTERSTOCK / NADIA GRAPES

It is estimated that, globally, women make up
approximately two-thirds of all the essential healthand care workers who are risking their lives to fight thispandemic, but they are still severely underrepresented
in the science, technology, engineering and math
(STEM) fields that fuel medical research.
This underrepresentation is confirmed by new
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
figures on applications filed under the Patent
Cooperation Treaty (PCT). In 1995, women represented
only 9.5% of the 82,000 inventors listed in PCTapplications published by WIPO. By 2019, that figure
had risen to almost 19% of 656,000 PCT-listed inventors.
Anything in our PCT filings that shows less than 50
percent participation by women points to potentially

Humankindneeds all hands
on deck in thefight against thispathogen.

missed innovation opportunities, which is particularly
worrisome now when the need for innovation isso acute, although a growing presence of women
inventors in the life sciences is encouraging.
While numbers are moving in the right direction,
the rate of progress has stagnated for most of theprevious decade and, as of today, parity among PCTlisted inventors will be reached only in 2044—24 years
from now!
I am also concerned by the fact that the economiccrisis may impose new additional barriers on women
inventors, further reducing the pace of change. While
ensuring that the current gains are maintained, wemust speed up progress towards the day when we may
all benefit from the entirety of human ingenuity.
This year, International Women’s Day on March 8
took on a particular significance as it coincided withthe 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration, theroadmap for the empowerment of women and girls
adopted by United Nations member states in 1995. So2020 represents a key opportunity to reflect on gaps andgains over the past 25 years, while turning towards the
future with renewed commitment and determination.
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number
five—gender equality—is a key, cross-cutting target anda precondition for sustainable progress toward thegoals to be achieved by 2030. WIPO is pleased to beleading the drive to boost innovation among womenand girls across the globe for a worldwide benefit andthe success of the SDGs.
Please join us in this important effort, whilecelebrating the model Women in IP we see featured inthis publication. lWIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

6

Diversity in law

www.worldipreview.com

Positive strides
WIPR’s latest survey on diversity and inclusion provides another sombre snapshotof an industry that’s behind the times but trying hard to catch up through a variety of
initiatives. Sarah Morgan reports.
arlier this year, WIPR undertook a
global survey to learn more about yourthoughts and experiences of diversity inthe legal profession. While our inauguralsurvey in 2019 mainly focused on gender diversity,
this year we broadened the focus to include all kindsof diversity and inclusion (D&I) issues for a fuller
picture. The results were, once again, sobering.
As in our first survey, the majority of our respondents
were women, with men and ‘other’ making up 20% and5%, respectively. The majority (70%) of respondents
came from private practice, while in-house, service
providers, IP offices and others made up the rest of thecohort, and a third of respondents consider themselves
to be part of a minority.

E

Personal stories and accountable leaders
Approximately three-quarters of respondents believethat D&I is a stated value for their organisation.
D&I seems to be more of a priority for those in
private practice, with 82% believing it’s a priority
for their organisation, compared with 70% of thosein other organisations.
These percentages are slightly lower than theamount of people who believe that D&I is either
extremely important or very important to improving
a company’s success (89%). And, given the sheer
number of studies which show that diversity
improves innovation and financial performance, it’sno surprise that only 3% of respondents feel that D&I
is not very or not at all important.
The bad news is that the percentage of firms witha D&I policy did not change year on year, with 65% of
respondents stating that their companies had such aIt’s important for
an organisation
to have diversity
champions whostrongly believe
in makingchanges.

Véronique Durand-Rettally,
Baker McKenzie

policy in both this year’s survey and last year’s. Private
practice respondents pushed up the results, with 67%
stating that their firm has a policy.
But there’s worse news: our survey found that only
three-quarters believe their senior management teamwas committed to D&I.
Brian Winterfeldt, principal of Winterfeldt IPGroup, says: “It is very unfortunate that although weare in the year 2020, a quarter of survey respondents
believe their senior management team is notdemonstrably committed to D&I.”
It’s crucial for a diverse and inclusive culture tocome from the top and be reinforced at every stepof the way. Otherwise, staff can end up feeling likeone respondent, who warns: “The initiatives feel likepublic-facing statements not internal goals.”
Véronique Durand-Rettally, counsel at Baker
McKenzie in Mexico, adds that having accountable
leaders is of the utmost importance when you’relooking to develop better D&I programmes.
“It’s important for an organisation to havediversity champions who strongly believe in making
changes and involve leadership to create a diverse andinclusive workplace,” she says. “But for any policy
and initiative to be successful, the commitment of
everyone, especially those at a decision-making level,is crucial.”
To get more members of senior management
engaged with these important efforts, Winterfeldt
suggests some effective approaches.
First, client pressure and peer pressure can bevery useful, he says, adding that “even those who are
not committed to D&I because it is the rightthing to do, ethically speaking, can be persuaded that

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

Diversity in law

www.worldipreview.com

7

Is diversity and inclusion a stated value
or priority for your organisation?

How important do you think diversity
and inclusion is to improving yourorganisation’s success?

5%
13%
PRIVATE
PRACTICE

We need to
discuss our own
programmingas to how weview and judge
others based onsocietal norms,
going to the root
causes of a lackof diversity.

52%

37%

82%

10%
20%

Mercedes Meyer,
Faegre Drinker Biddle& ReathOTHERS

8%

70%
2%

1%

Yes

No

Don’t know

Extremely important
Very important
Somewhat important
Not so important
Not at all important

there is a significant business case for an investment
in D&I”.
In recent years, a series of corporates haveintroduced diversity demands on outside counsel,
with Intel announcing that it would “not retain or
use outside law firms in the US that are average or
below average on diversity”.
“Law firms whose clients require a demonstration of
a D&I commitment are more likely to offer diverse client
service teams, and corporate organisations may also be
accountable to their own customers and shareholders
who expect progress in this area,” adds Winterfeldt.

He believes that leadership team members who are
not diverse may simply not be thinking about D&I if
it hasn’t been relevant to their own career path andadvancement trajectory.
According to our survey, 96% of respondents
were aware of women in senior positions in theirorganisations. But, those with other diverse
characteristics were less visible. Only 50% of
respondents were aware of senior people froman ethnic minority, and approximately 42% of
respondents knew of an LGBTQ+ person on thesenior team.
The numbers are much lower when you lookat people with a disability and those from a lower
socioeconomic background, with approximately 15%
and 26%, respectively.
“I have found that personal stories resonate withsenior professionals whose own life experiences havenot been impacted by D&I,” adds Winterfeldt.
“Once these professionals hear from diverse
personnel who have either been helped by D&I efforts,

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

8

Diversity in law

www.worldipreview.com

All
respondents:
does yourorganisation
Does
Does
your
your organisation
organisation
have
have
aa diversity
diversity
have a diversity
and inclusion
andand inclusion
inclusion
policy?
policy? policy?

Private practice:practice: does
does your
your organisation
organisation
Privatehave aa diversity
diversity andand inclusion
inclusion policy?
policy?
have

Law firms whoseclients require ademonstrationof a D&I
commitment
are more likely
to offer diverse
client service
teams.

Yes:
Yes:
Yes:
65%
65%
65%

No:
No:
No:
22%
22%
22%

Don’t
Don’t
Don’t
know:
know:
know:
13%
13%
13%

Brian Winterfeldt,
Winterfeldt IP Groupor hindered by a lack of them, they may be open todeveloping more inclusive practices and policies.”

No:
No:
No:
20%
20%
20%

Don’t
Don’t
Don’t
know:
know:
know:
13%
13%
13%

to be responsive to feedback from members of theorganisation at all levels.
“For example, D&I training can be very well done
and create a true sense of inclusion and community
among an organisation’s workforce,” he explains.
“However, if training is mandatory but comes
across as perfunctory, it can have the opposite impact
and make employees feel as if management is ‘phoning
it in’, so to speak, especially if the employees continue
to observe overt discrimination or a perceived lack ofopportunities for diverse personnel.”Root causes
Mercedes Meyer, partner at Faegre Drinker Biddle &Reath in the US, warns that accountability is currently
failing. She believes that firms and in-house teams
need to hold groups accountable for putting people
on their teams and ensure they are not using a teamof people of only one gender or one ethnic group.
While Meyer believes that many people arecommitted to improving D&I, she cautions that someare not looking at and addressing the underlying root
causes of a lack of diversity.
“We need to discuss our own programming as
to how we view and judge others based on societal
norms, going to the root causes of a lack of diversity,”
she says. Unconscious bias training is just one ofmany options that IP firms are undertaking to push
D&I efforts.
“You can be committed, but if you don’t undertake
actions, then the commitment is without impact,”
Meyer adds.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents say theircompany has mentoring and leadership development
programmes, while more than half have set up adiversity and/or inclusion committee. But otherinitiatives such as diversity training and affinity
networks lag behind, with 42% and 40%, respectively.
A variety of initiatives can be successful, says
Winterfeldt, but it’s vital for the senior personnel
who are developing and promoting these initiatives

Yes:
Yes:
Yes:
67%
67%
67%

Do you believe
your senior
management
team/managing
partner iscommitted todiversity andinclusion?
10%
15%

75%

Yes

No

Don’t know

Fighting the system
Even though some IP organisations are undertaking
exemplary D&I work, it’s a sad picture for the legal
profession as a whole—only half of our respondents
believe that the profession is doing well in this respect.
“The legal profession talks a good talk but fails on
the evidence,” claims one respondent.
In the UK, women make up 49% of lawyers in law
firms, but only 34% of partners are women, according to
the Solicitors Regulation Authority. In large firms, withmore than 50 partners, only 29% of women are partners.
Black and Asian lawyers are significantly
underrepresented in mid to large-size firms of six ormore partners. Firms with more than 50 partners
have the lowest proportion of black, Asian, andminority ethnic partners (8%)—no change since 2017.
It’s much the same in the US where only one in fiveequity partners in law firms are women and less than
8% are people of colour, according to a report fromthe National Association for Law Placement (NALP).

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

Diversity in law

www.worldipreview.com

Others: does your organisation have adiversity and inclusion policy?

Would you saythat you are part ofa minority at yourcompany?

35%
65%

Yes

Yes:
Yes:
59%
59%

No:
No:
26%
26%

No

Don’t
Don’t
know:
know:
15%
15%

But there is hope, and Durand-Rettally is
optimistic. She believes that it’s hard to change suchan ingrained business model, but the legal profession
is attempting to fight against this.
“The legal profession is fighting against its own system
in order to be part of this inevitable change,” she says.
In the more than 20 years that Winterfeldt has
been practising law, there have been some notable
improvements, he says. Much earlier in his career,
LGBTQ+ professionals were often excluded from9diversity committees and external diversity-relatedorganisations, but this has changed in the past
decade, with a movement towards greater inclusivity.
Progress is much slower in private practicethan in-house, says Winterfeldt, with “incredible”
attrition across all diversity categories as attorneys
progress from summer/junior associates to thepartner level.
“I am hoping there may be a time in the not-toodistant future when junior practitioners can readily
see paths to wherever their goals may take them,whether the goal is to make partner or go in-houseand become the general counsel.
“We do have a very long way to go until that vision
can be realised, however,” he adds.
The biggest problem in the legal profession, says
Meyer, is the billable hour. This structure makes
managers select the easiest team to work with, andmakes people reluctant to train new people to do thejob as this takes up precious time.
Meyer explains: “If you have a requirement of
2,400 hours per year, that works out to 6.57 hours
every day of the year or 9.1 hours if you take weekends
off. Those numbers work against time available foreducation for diversity, teaching, affinity groups andsolving the problem.
“They work against people with disabilities. They
work against socialising and getting to know yourcolleagues.”
While it’s unlikely that the idea of billable hours
will change any time soon, other practices, such as
mentoring and training to ensure retention andflexible working can go a long way towards ensuring apipeline of diverse professionals.
Winterfeldt concludes: “We are, at the core, anindustry of creative solutions, and we won’t findthose solutions for our clients—whether internal orexternal—through a narrow lens.” lWhat aspects of diversity does your diversity and inclusion policy cover?

87%

Gender85%

Race andethnicity

61%
Age

78%

Sexual orientationand gender
identity64%
Religion

72%

Disability
and ability

47%
Socioeconomic

WIPR Influential Women in IP 202010

Indigenous entrepreneurs

www.worldipreview.com

Protecting theentrepreneurial spirit
Becoming an entrepreneur is not an easy routeto take. But when you’re an indigenous woman,
it can be even tougher. Sarah Morgan interviews
bold women about their experiences and therole IP can play in empowerment.

he Native American story is one ofland loss and the extreme sufferingthat came with colonisation. It’s
important to acknowledge the truth ofthese events, but also not to forget other stories—
those of economic self-sufficiency and creative
entrepreneurship.
An important part of the Native American story
is how they have fought to protect their culturalexpressions and traditions from exploitation. Penobscot
woman Theresa Secord is just one of many examples ofindigenous women who have led these efforts.
In the mid-1800s, indigenous women began
taking their woven baskets to coastal Maine resort
towns in the summer to sell to tourists, but learning
how to weave subsequently waned in popularity.
Now, Secord is playing a vital role in the resurrectionof one of what is one of the oldest known Native
American crafts.
Speaking to me before heading out to a major art
market in the US, Secord describes basket weaving
as a family tradition, beginning with her great
grandmother. Secord is a member of the Penobscot
nation, a federally recognised tribe in Maine.
After founding the Maine Indian Basketmakers
Alliance 25 years ago, she helped bring forward
a new generation of basket makers. The averageage of those involved in basket weaving fell from63 to 43, while the overall number of participants grew.
She’s spent a long time advocating for the art form,
and feels that “too often, we undervalue ourselves”.
“Looking back, I think it’s safe to say that womenof my generation and earlier are very undervalued
when it comes to their rights to IP,” she says.
Hers is a similar story to that of Sámi woman
Solveig Ballo, who I speak to while she’s on a fourand-a-half-hour drive, travelling between her offices
in northern Scandinavia where she supports nearly
50 Sámi businesses and entrepreneurs with advice
and counselling.
Hailing from a region that stretches across thenorthern part of Scandinavia and Russia’s Kola

Peninsula, the indigenous Sámi people are perhaps
best known for their reindeer herding. But thecommunity has a rich culture of arts and handmade
crafts, such as Joik—the folk music of the Sámi.
But young people are moving to bigger cities andabandoning traditional ways of life.
For the women who stay the biggest challenge,
according to Ballo, is daring to take the bold step tobecome a full-time entrepreneur.
“This applies to everyone, but it’s especially truein small communities. It takes a lot of courage tosay: ‘I’ve made this and I want to sell it for the rightprice’,” she adds.

T

Laws andregulations need
to be in place
where the IP
for innovations
and creationsof indigenous
women isrespected
and valued.

Rebecka Forsgren,
WIPO 2019 Indigenous Fellow

Building a new culture
All the women I speak to offer the same story: IP
can play a crucial role in developing the businessesof indigenous entrepreneurs, but there’s a lack ofunderstanding in their communities.
Indigenous women are often the protectors
and carriers of their cultures, and their traditional
knowledge and cultural expressions are invaluable,says Rebecka Forsgren, a Sámi and the WorldIntellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) 2019
Indigenous Fellow.
“They may not wish to commercialise theirculture and knowledge. However, if they do, theyshould have access to the IP system and be able toprotect the IP of their innovations and creations,”
she explains.
Secord and Ballo both took part in WIPO’s
training and mentoring programme for women
entrepreneurs from indigenous peoples and local
communities.
“Learning more about IP is important forentrepreneurs here as we don’t have a culture ofprotecting our services and goods and creative
expressions,” explains Ballo, who says she’s seen a lackof understanding in how the system works and how
the Sámi people perceive the system in the community.
Forsgren adds that through WIPO’s programme,
indigenous peoples, and especially indigenous

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
www.worldipreview.com

women, can “feel that their culture is an asset, with agreat cultural as well as economic value”.
But cultural appropriation is rife, as the Native
American and Sámi communities have bothexperienced to their cost.
“IP gives us the knowledge and tools to address
this and ensures we’re able to define what is ours andwhat makes us unique,” says Secord. “But we haveto be invited as collaborators and not be invited as
exploitation.”
There have been some positive instances ofcollaboration, but they’ve usually stemmed fromearlier controversies. The Walt Disney Company
worked with the transnational Saami Council, andSámi parliaments of Norway, Sweden, and Finlandon “Frozen 2”, but only after it was contacted by theindigenous community about “Frozen” and its useof indigenous elements.
Emboldened by the WIPO programme, Secord isplanning to register her own logo and is developing

Indigenous entrepreneurs

Above: Theresa Secord, amember of the Penobscot
nation, a federally
recognised tribe in Maine,
US. Top: Secord's great
grandmother, in 1940.
Above left: Solveig Ballo, amember of the SaÂmi people,
from a region that spans
northern Scandinavia andRussia's Kola Peninsula.

11

an IP webinar to share with the Native American artist
community who, she says, are hungry for information.
What most dismays Secord is the cost of protecting
IP and filing lawsuits. “Unless you can get pro bono
help, it’s going to be impossible for indigenous
communities to hire a lawyer,” she laments.
Forsgren concludes: “Laws and regulations need to
be in place where the IP for innovations and creationsof indigenous women is respected and valued.
Possibilities to protect their IP should be available
to indigenous women on all levels, local, national
and international.”
While traditional knowledge doesn’t fit squarely
into the existing IP system, there’s a growing
awareness that this needs to change. In themeantime, skills that have existed for centuries will
be passed on and their importance to the creators
will endure—as will the sad fact that indigenous
women have only the charity of lawyers and moral
fortitude of lawmakers to fall back on. lWIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

12

Diversity in the workplacewww.worldipreview.com

Silicon Valley’s‘bro culture’: faulty
pipeline, or old
fashioned misogyny?
The tech industry has started to acknowledge
its problem with sexism and diversity, andis publishing more data than ever on its
workforce. But is any real progress being
made? Rory O’Neill reports.

t’s well known that the tech industry has
a diversity problem. For many, the words‘Silicon Valley’ conjure up an image ofthe quintessential ‘tech bro’. The term,alongside Silicon Valley’s ‘bro culture’, has become abyword for the tech industry’s sexism.
The industry knows this as well. The past decade
has seen an increased focus from industry leaders onchanging the narrative around diversity and equality
in Silicon Valley. One step, adopted by several big
companies, has been to start publishing diversity andinclusion reports.
Each company has its own stated aims for
publishing these reports, but in general, we canassume they’re intended to communicate to the
public an awareness of the problem, demonstrate
greater transparency, and highlight companies’
efforts to make a difference.
Has heightened awareness of the problem led totangible progress? The best place to start is to lookat what the numbers in tech companies’ own reports
tell us. According to Google’s 2019 diversity andinclusion report, published last April, the company’s
global workforce is made up of 68.4% men and31.6% women.
In terms of racial diversity, Google’s US staff
comprises predominantly two ethnic groups—White(54.5%) and ‘Asian+’ (39.7%). Just 3.3% of Google’s
US staff are ‘Black+’. The document doesn’t specify
exactly which groups are included under the termBlack+, but according to the US Census Bureau’s(USCB) estimates, Black or African-American people
make up 13.4% of the total population in the US.
The report also records ‘Latinx+’ (this term is notuniversally accepted, but is used by Google) as being
the ethnicity of 5.7% of the company’s US staff. The
USCB estimates Latino and Hispanic people, theclosest comparable category, to be 18.3% of the total
US population.

I

FACEBOOK GLOBALWORKFORCE

WOMEN
36.9%
MEN
63.1%

Source: Facebook 2019
Diversity Report

GOOGLE GLOBALWORKFORCE

WOMEN
31.6%
MEN
68.4%

Source: Google 2019 diversity
and inclusion report

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
www.worldipreview.com

Diversity in the workplace

13

SHUTTERSTOCK / LIGHTSPRING

The lower
numbers
of womenstudying STEM
undoubtedly
impacts thenumber of
women who arerecruited to techcompanies.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

14

Diversity in the workplace

Google’s lack of racial diversity is skewed primarily
against two groups: Latino and Black people. Thisis particularly glaring when compared to the US
population as a total. You could perhaps get a truer
picture by looking at the geographic spread ofGoogle’s employees.
Google’s national headquarters is located in
Mountain View, California, where it employs morethan 20,000 people (a significant chunk of parent
company Alphabet’s global 100,000+ workforce). The
demographics of California could possibly go some
way towards explaining the proportion of Black+
employees at Google—the 3.3% figure compares
slightly more favourably to the 6.5% of California
residents who are Black or African-American, than to
the total US figure of 13.4%.
But this still doesn’t explain how underrepresented‘Latinx+’ people are—the USCB says that Latinoand Hispanic people make up 39.3% of California’s
population. It would be unfair to focus exclusively
on Google (which could not provide a spokesperson
for comment), especially as these figures are only
intended to demonstrate a trend that is common
across the tech sector. Look at similar players in theindustry, and you will find the same dynamics.
Facebook’s latest diversity report, published last
July, indicates that 36.9% of its global workforce are
women. When looking at technical jobs, that drops
to just 23%. Its US staff consists of 5.2% Hispanic
people, and 3.8% Black people. In technical roles, thisis 3.5% and 1.5%, respectively.

What is being done
If we know, and the tech sector knows, that theindustry has a grave diversity problem, then perhaps
we should look at how things have changed over the
past few years. If tech is serious about solving the
problem, what has it been able to do to help balancethese figures out?
In 2014, 31% of Facebook’s staff were women, butjust 15% of its technical staff. Over five years, that’s apercentage increase of 5.9 and 8, respectively. Looking
at a different metric, Google’s 2019 report states thatthe company increased its hiring of women globallyby just 1.9% from 2018, while its proportion of
Latinx+ and Black+ hires increased by 0.7% and 0.5%,
respectively. For many people, this rate of progress is
not enough.
Alaina Percival, board chair of Women Who
Code, has seen first-hand how damaging this lack ofdiversity can be on underrepresented employees attech companies. Her organisation focuses specificallyon gender equality, and she has observed how
women can often internalise a lack of professional
advancement and blame themselves.
“If you’re the only woman in a team of 20, you
might start to get the feeling that you don’t deserve
to be there,” Percival says.
“People might mistake you for the secretary or the
recruiter for the company, or you might be overlooked

23%of Facebook's technicalstaff were women,
as published in thecompany's latest diversity
report in 2019

1.9%
increase from 2018 in
Google's hiring of women
globally, according to thecompany's 2019 diversity
and inclusion reportwww.worldipreview.com

for promotion because of preconceptions about whatmakes a good leader.”What makes a good leader, she says, often justmeans ‘being male’.
“You start to think that maybe you’re not goodenough when you keep hitting barriers over andover,” Percival adds.
The diversity reports are useful insofar as theyillustrate starkly the shape of tech’s diversity problem.
Women are underrepresented, and a lack of racial
diversity skews heavily against Latin and Black people.
All of these problems are exacerbated whenlooking at technical roles. The numbers are clear, anddemonstrate a rate of progress that is out of step withthe tech industry’s stated commitment to greater
diversity.
Looking at the numbers alone, you can lose
something of the dynamic on the ground. Why are thenumbers this way, what are the real obstacles to equality,
and what are the potential solutions? It’s difficult toprescribe a list of quick fixes, but these are the questions
that should accompany any diversity report.

Fixing the bias
Tech companies will often point to a lower proportionof the industry’s underrepresented demographics
studying subjects related to science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at universities.
In this way, it can be argued that tech’s diversity
problem mirrors the ‘pipeline’ of graduates coming
through with the required technical expertise.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

Diversity in the workplacewww.worldipreview.com

SHUTTERSTOCK / MONSTAR STUDIOOthers say tech should not get off so easily.
“It’s not just that the pipeline is broken,” says
Percival’s colleague and Women Who Code interim
CEO Joey Rosenberg, who points instead to factors
such as tech companies’ “unconscious bias” in thehiring and treatment of women.
Her organisation focuses on providing career
support to women working in the tech sector. “Wedeal mostly with women who are already there at thetech companies—and they’re not staying,” Rosenbergsays, adding that “most don’t hit the ten-year mark”.
While it may be convenient for tech companies
to point towards a more generalised inequality in
STEM, this surely doesn’t exonerate them from
responsibility for the negative experiences reported
by women who have made it through the pipeline.
This is a good juncture to stop and acknowledge
that sexism is not just tech’s problem—undoubtedly
many women working in law, IP, and virtually any
industry for that matter, will recognise their own
experiences in what Percival and Rosenberg say about
the obstacles facing women in tech.
Diane Gabl Kratz, senior IP counsel at a techcompany, has been practising IP law in Silicon Valley
for more than a decade. She has worked in private
practice, representing clients including global techcompanies, and now holds a senior in-house position.
Gabl Kratz is herself a product of the STEM pipeline.
“As a woman studying physics at Cornell
University, I had only good experiences there—butthere were very few of us,” she recalls.

We deal mostly
with women
who arealready thereat the techcompanies—
and they’re
not staying.

Joey Rosenberg,
Women Who Code15

The lower numbers of women studying STEM
undoubtedly impacts the number of women who arerecruited to tech companies, but it doesn’t absolve
employers of the responsibility to “treat the women
they do have fairly”, Gabl Kratz says.
The same goes for law where, she believes,women face many of the same challenges, including
unequal pay. This is particularly true of patent
law, which draws from a similar talent pool as thetech companies.
When applying for in-house jobs at various techcompanies, Gabl Kratz says she has had internal
recruiters offer her a position at a below market salary,
and then “refuse to take my reasonable counteroffer back to the hiring manager because it wouldbe ‘too much trouble’ to go through the negotiation
process”.
In another instance, a company posted for a fulltime, in-house attorney position. After the final
round of interviews, the company offered Gabl Kratz
the job, but there was a catch—“instead of honouring
the formal requisition, the company changed thejob from permanent to a ‘temp-to-perm’ role”. This
allows the company to pay a much lower hourly wage
for three months and then decide whether to extend
the employment contract.
In addition to economic inequality, throughout
her career as a lawyer she has sometimes found theculture to be unwelcoming. She cites the example ofa partner in a senior leadership position at a firm she
worked for, who was supposed to be her mentor.
“He was profoundly uncomfortable around
women,” Gabl Kratz recalls. “He would barely speak
to me, which of course harmed my ability to work
effectively with him. He treated me so differently
from how he treated the male associates that othersat the firm commented on it.”After many quarters of strong positive reviews,
Gabl Kratz says the partner suddenly started to giveher poor ratings in every single category.
“I asked for specific examples of my supposedly‘poor’ performance, and he could not provide asingle one,” she says.
Gabl Kratz’s account is important, becauseamid talk of leadership initiatives and pipelines,
it’s important to remember that among the biggest
obstacles to diversity is barefaced sexism.
It’s vital to address the lower numbers of womenstudying STEM subjects, as well as other disciplines.
But the ‘pipeline’ doesn’t give employers the right towash their hands of responsibility for what happens intheir own organisations. It’s clear that Silicon Valley’s
diversity problem can’t be explained away by external
factors. The problem in tech, law, and anything else
for that matter, is not merely a statistical imbalance,
but also a culture of exclusion and sexism. l
Gabl Kratz emphasised that she is not authorised to speak onbehalf of any of her employers, but is speaking in a personal
capacity about her experiences.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 202016

Influential women

www.worldipreview.com

In the spotlight
Welcome to the second editionof WIPR ’s Influential Women,featuring 80 of the best and brightest
women in the IP industry.
s part of our online diversity and inclusion
survey which ran earlier this year, we asked
our readers to nominate outstanding
women in their organisations and beyond.
In our inaugural edition, we were inundated withnominations from across the globe. This year was nodifferent—clear and compelling evidence that women
play a vital role in advancing the IP industry andchallenging the existing status quo.
Unlike our first edition, which highlighted only
private practice lawyers, this year we’ve cast our net
more widely. We received many nominations for female
lawyers practising in-house and in private practice, andfor women working at IP institutions across the globe.
Below, you’ll find a selection of women who are
outstanding in their chosen field. Each of these 80
women deserves her place on our 100 Influential
Women in IP list—and we’ve saved 20 places for
our Trailblazers (lawyers with ten or fewer years ofexperience in the IP field).
We know that there are so many more women who
are deserving of this nomination and this publication
looks to celebrate them as well. lA

SHUTTERSTOCK / MEDIA WHALESTOCK

Women playa vital role inadvancing the
IP industry
and challenging
the existing
status quo.

Mette Andersen

Lesley Babb

SENIOR CORPORATE COUNSEL, THE
LEGO GROUP, DENMARKHEAD OF PAY, REWARD, DIVERSITY& INCLUSION, UK INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY OFFICE, UK

Mette Andersen has been with the LEGO Groupsince March 2007, serving as senior corporate
counsel and director. She focuses on trademarks
and domain names. Andersen, who has worked
on IP-related matters for more than 20 years, hasexperience from private practice, the Court ofJustice of the European Union and in-house. She
was one of the members of the implementation
recommendation team established by ICANN
to try to solve the overarching trademark issues
under the new gTLDs. She is also the business
representative in the Complaint Board for
Domain Names under .dk and chairman of
the European Brands Association’s trademark
committee.

A career civil servant and HR professional,
Lesley Babb’s roles within the UK Intellectual
Property Office (IPO) span 20 years. In her
current role, Babb leads on the development
and implementation of two multi-year people
strategies on inclusion and reward that support
making the IPO a ‘Brilliant Place to Work’ so it
can ‘Create a World-leading IP Environment’.
Babb is a Stonewall workplace ally and achampion for mental health awareness. In four ofthe past five years, she has led the reform on the
IPO’s pay system, negotiating changes to makethe pay system fairer for everyone.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
www.worldipreview.com

Influential women

Bharati Bakshani

Karima Bawa

PARTNER, LADAS & PARRY, US

SENIOR FELLOW, CENTRE FOR
INTERNATIONAL GOVERNANCEINNOVATION, CANADA

Bharati Bakshani is a partner in the New York
office of Ladas & Parry. Qualified to practise
in India, the UK and New York, her practicehas a global flavour, focusing on international
trademark prosecution and enforcement. She
manages US trademark prosecution workfor the New York office and has filed, cleared,prosecuted and enforced marks in approximately
200 countries. Bakshani represents clients in the
fashion, apparel, jewellery, food and beverage,
military products, electrical products, and media
sectors. She also trains and mentors young
attorneys.

Shilpi Banerjee
CHIEF IP COUNSEL, MEMORIAL SLOAN
KETTERING CANCER CENTER, US

17

As a senior fellow at the Centre for International
Governance Innovation (CIGI), Karima Bawa
focuses her research on issues surrounding thecommercialisation of university research anddevelopment and capacity building in IP strategy
for Canadian innovators. Through CIGI, shedeveloped an online IP course. Bawa also serves
on a number of boards and advises and supports
technology startups and scaleups. Prior to herrole at CIGI, Bawa was the chief legal officer
and general counsel at Research In Motion (nowBlackBerry).

Flor Bermúdez
PARTNER, BGAL ASOCIADOS, MEXICOAs chief IP counsel and associate general counsel
at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center(MSK), Shilpi Banerjee’s practice includes
oversight of patent matters and agreements
related to the research enterprise at MSK. She isalso responsible for transactional, licensing, andlitigation matters related to the research institute’s
IP. Before joining MSK in 2013, Banerjee served ascounsel and chair of the research and education
practice group at the Cleveland Clinic. She spent
several years in private practice at Ropes and Gray
and at Sidley Austin, where she focused on patent
prosecution and patent litigation.

With more than 20 years of experience in IP
matters, Flor Bermúdez leads BGAL Asociados’s
national and foreign trademarks department. She
focuses on national and international trademark
prosecution, including worldwide trademark
protection strategy, legal advice and contentious
proceedings in other territories. Bermúdez isthe organiser of the “Women’s IP Lunch” event,initiated in 2013 to gather women lawyers from
Latin America every year to share experiences andpromote networking. She is an active memberof the Mexican Association for the Protection ofIntellectual Property, INTA and ASIPI.

Sharon Barner

Nola Bond

VICE-PRESIDENT AND GENERALCOUNSEL, CUMMINS INC, US

DIRECTOR, KISCH IP GROUP,
SOUTH AFRICA

Sharon Barner is vice-president and general
counsel for Cummins, responsible for global legal
matters, including support of strategic corporate
initiatives, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory,compliance and other risk management activities.
Prior to joining Cummins, she served as deputy
director of the US Patent and Trademark
Office where she was responsible for patentand trademark operations. Barner also enjoyeda distinguished career at Foley & Lardner, a
global law firm, where she was a partner (1996–
2009, 2011), a member of the firm’s executive
management Committee (2003–2009), and chairof the IP department (2006–2009).

Nola Bond is a partner and director in the
trademark department of the Kisch IP Group.
With more than 28 years of experience in IP, her
practice covers trademark protection, copyrightand licensing including rights transfers,
trademark portfolio management and strategic
brand management. In recent years, Bondhas turned her attention to brand protection
and management, including advice on brandprotection in Africa and globally. She is a memberof INTA, and a senior domain name adjudicatorin South Africa.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 202018

Influential women

www.worldipreview.com

Andrea Brewster

Eleonora Carrillo

FOUNDER AND LEAD EXECUTIVEOFFICER, IP INCLUSIVE, UK

MANAGING PARTNER, JACOBACCI &PARTNERS, SPAIN

Andrea Brewster founded IP Inclusive, an initiative
dedicated to improving diversity and inclusion in
the IP professions, in 2015. She now manages thedevelopment of the initiative as its lead executive
officer. Between May 2015 and 2016, Brewster
served as president of the Chartered Instituteof Patent Attorneys (CIPA) and now sits on its
governing council. She practised since the early
1990s as a UK chartered patent attorney and cofounded the IP practice Greaves Brewster in 2000,
before retiring in 2015 to concentrate on CIPA
and IP Inclusive work.

Eleonora Carrillo is the managing partner of
Jacobacci & Partners’ Madrid office. She represents
domestic and international clients in connection
with the management, prosecution and enforcementof global trademark portfolios. Her clients include
world-famous brands and market leaders fromindustries including fashion, sports, luxury, finance,
food, wine and automobile. In 2017, she formallylaunched Jacobacci’s Latin American practice, which
provides the centralised management of IP in theregion. Carrillo is a member of INTA’s famousand well-known marks committee and ASIPI’s
management of firms committee.

Mariana Bullrich
HEAD OF PATENT AND DESIGNDEPARTMENT, NOETINGER &ARMANDO, ARGENTINAMariana Bullrich has practised at Noetinger &Armando for more than 20 years, focusing on
the pharmaceutical and biotech fields. Before
joining the firm, Bullrich worked in the National
Academy of Medicine as a researcher. She has
handled the prosecution of thousands of patentapplications in Argentina and other countries in
Latin America and Central America. Bullrich also
carries out freedom-to-operate searches for local
companies, contributing to the development ofbusinesses throughout Argentina.

Yael Cabilly
FOUNDING PARTNER, CABILLY& CO, ISRAEL
Yael Cabilly is the founder of Cabilly & Co andhas more than 15 years of experience in IP. She
is licensed to practise law in Israel and New York,and holds a master’s degree in law from Columbia
University. Her firm has a unique expertise in
e-commerce laws: it represents more than 4,000
Amazon sellers worldwide and assists themwith various legal issues, including trademark,copyright and design patent registration, andlegal disputes on e-commerce platforms. The firm
also specialises in non-traditional trademarks,
and has successfully obtained colour trademarksin the US.

Virginia Cervieri
SENIOR PARTNER, CERVIERIMONSUÁREZ, URUGUAY
Virginia Cervieri is a co-founder of Cervieri
Monsuárez and has nearly 20 years’ experiencein IP law. She often represents clients in the
fashion, retail, food, beverages, toys, electronic,
and entertainment industries. Cervieri heads thefirm’s anti-counterfeiting team and was chairof INTA’s anticounterfeiting committee. She ismember of the anticounterfeiting committee at
Marques, chair or the Latin America chapter of
Luxury Law and president of the Chamber Against
Smuggling and Piracy. Cervieri has represented
large companies in trade dress, damages, andsignal piracy cases, and represents Cipriani Groupacross the world.

Vivien Chan
FOUNDING AND MANAGING PARTNER,
VIVIEN CHAN & CO, HONG KONG
Vivien Chan is the founding and managing
partner of Vivien Chan & Co, a Greater China
law firm in Hong Kong and Beijing. She has
more than 40 years’ experience in mergers andacquisitions, China direct investment, technology
transfers, information technology, IP and related
tax issues. She has been admitted as a solicitor
in England and Wales, Hong Kong, New South
Wales (Australia), and Singapore. She is fluent in
Mandarin, Cantonese, French, and English.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
www.worldipreview.com

Influential women

19

Ella Cheong

Joana de Mattos Siqueira

SENIOR PARTNER, ELLA CHEONG &ALAN CHIU, SOLICITOR & NOTARIES,HONG KONG

PARTNER, MONTAURY PIMENTA,
MACHADO & VIEIRA DE MELLOADVOGADOS, BRAZIL

Ella Cheong is the senior partner of Ella Cheong& Alan Chiu, Solicitors & Notaries, where she
focuses on all issues related to IP rights. Asidefrom founding the firm, Cheong has establishedagency firm Ella Cheong (Hong Kong and
Beijing), which was recently sold with proceeds
given to charity, and the Singapore firm of Ella
Cheong. She works with small and medium-sizedenterprises, social enterprises and charitableorganisations. Cheong formerly served as chairof the Law Society of Hong Kong’s IP committee
and is now its member of honour. She is an INTA
President’s Award winner.

Joana de Mattos Siqueira has been a partner at
Montaury Pimenta, Machado & Vieira de Mellosince 2012 and has been working in IP since 1998.
For the past ten years, de Mattos Siqueira has beenleading the firm’s foreign department, focusing
on trademark law. Her practice includes domestic
trademark clearance, prosecution and registrationand opposition proceedings. In addition to serving
as president of ASIPI’s trademark committee, deMattos Siqueira is a member of INTA’s brands
for better society committee. She leads the firm’s
diversity and inclusion’s committee and is amember of the Women’s Intellectual Property
Lawyers Association.

Jennifer Chung
GENERAL COUNSEL, ACCUWEATHER,
US
Jennifer Chung is the general counsel for weather
media company AccuWeather, providing legal
support across all lines of business and functions,
including labour and employment, corporate
governance, mergers and acquisitions and IP. As an
associate general counsel at AccuWeather, Chungfocused on brand protection, patent portfolio
monetisation and management, and trademark
management and enforcement. Chung previously
served as an assistant general counsel at TimeInc and as an assistant counsel at the New YorkState Department of Economic Development,
providing counsel on statewide agency mattersconcerning IP issues, including the ‘I Love NY’family of service marks and trademarks.

Her Honour Judge
Melissa Clarke
SENIOR CIRCUIT JUDGE, JUDICIARY
OF ENGLAND & WALES, UK
HHJ Melissa Clarke became a circuit judge
and deputy High Court judge in 2015, and asenior circuit judge in 2017. She regularly sits
in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court
and the Patents Court, covering IP cases of all
types. Her recent cases include Excel-Eucan v Source
Vagabond Systems and Shnuggle v Munchkin. HHJ
Clarke qualified as a solicitor in 1994 into the IP
department of Linklaters and subsequently became
co-head of the firm’s internet and e-commerce
practice before moving in-house. In practice
she focused on copyright, trademarks, media/
entertainment, software, and data protection.

Ayala Deutsch
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND
DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL,NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATIONPROPERTIES, US
Ayala Deutsch is executive vice president anddeputy general counsel of NBA Properties, themarketing and licensing arm of the National
Basketball Association (NBA). Deutsch manages
commercial legal affairs and IP matters for the
NBA and its affiliated leagues, including the
global acquisition, protection and enforcementof IP rights belonging to the NBA, the Women’s
National Basketball Association, the NBA G
League, the NBA 2K League and their respective
teams. She is INTA’s 2020 president. Before
joining NBA Properties in 1998, she was an
associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton
in New York, specialising in IP litigation andarbitration.

Frances Drummond
PARTNER, HEAD OF IP, NORTONROSE FULBRIGHT, AUSTRALIAFrances Drummond has been a partner at
Norton Rose Fulbright since 2011 and currently
serves as head of IP in Australia. She practises
across all aspects of IP law including portfolio
management, enforcement and exploitation, witha primary interest in trademarks. Drummondadvises clients in the pharmaceutical, technology,
retail and brands, transport, and energy fields. In
addition to being an accredited mediator and aqualified board director, Drummond has served
as an in-house trademarks advisor to a major
pharmaceutical in the UK.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

20

Influential women

www.worldipreview.com

Class of 2019:
Spring Chang,
Chang Tsi & Partners
Spring Chang has played a central role in the growth of her
firm, Chang Tsi & Partners, and is proud of its successes inpromoting diversity, as she tells WIPR.
What’s the most difficult part of your job?

As a child, becoming a lawyer was my dream—I thought
it was a very noble career. Law is the cornerstone of afree, democratic and just country. As an important partof a country’s legal system, the lawyer is the promoterof freedom, democracy and justice. Even to this day, I
maintain my conviction that I can contribute to thelegal system. I am proud to be a lawyer.

As a lawyer, victory in a lawsuit is the most desired
result, satisfying me and my clients.
However, we have encountered many cunning
infringement cases. We have to coordinate theclient’s objectives, the merits of the case and evidencecollected, and resources of our litigation team toachieve our goal.

How did you become founding partner of
Chang Tsi & Partners?

Have you faced any barriers or challenges inyour career?

After I obtained my LLM degree from China
University of Political Science and Law, I worked for
the State Planning Committee (currently the National
Development and Reform Commission of China) fora period of two years and then worked at law firm
CCPIT, which was the only IP agency in China.
In the late 1990s, with the implementation ofChina’s reform and opening-up policy, the domestic
market opened rapidly, which resulted in China’s
IP sector undergoing tremendous changes. China’s
state-owned agency ended its monopoly on thedomestic IP market, setting up the country’s firstbatch of privately-owned IP agencies.
My partner and I saw the huge potential andbusiness opportunities in the development ofChinese IP market, and seized the opportunity to set
up Chang Tsi & Partners in 2002.

As a busy female lawyer, balancing work and life is a
big challenge. I spend most of my time at work, which
consumes a lot of energy and physical strength.
I’ve taken up some hobbies to relieve the pressure
at work, such as swimming which keeps me mentallyand physically strong. I also love painting so I seize
any opportunity to paint—I hope painting will
become my second career after I retire as a lawyer.

What’s your biggest achievement?
Playing a crucial role in the growth of the firm is mygreatest achievement. In 2002, Chang Tsi & Partners
had five lawyers and was an unknown law firm. All thework needed to be done manually and the number ofclients was very small.
Now, Chang Tsi & Partners is a well-known law
firm in the field of Chinese IP, with 350 employees(200 lawyers and agents) and thousands of clients.

What’s the best part about your job?
In my more than 25 years of professional experience,
I have witnessed the development of many young
people who have graduated and then entered our firm.
It is my great pleasure to seem them practising as
partners and key lawyers in our firm, and I maintaina good relationship with those who have left thefirm. The best part of my job is that I can influenceand train young IP practitioners and contribute totraining personnel for the Chinese IP industry.

What advice would you give to those looking
to enter the IP profession?

The best part of
my job is that
I can influenceand train young
IP practitioners
and contributeto training
personnel for
the Chinese IP
industry.

People who want to join the industry need to fully
prepare themselves physically and mentally. It’s notan easy job. You face many deadlines every day andyou always need to keep learning as the IP industry
changes rapidly. It requires a lawyer to have a strong
learning ability.

How are you involved in promoting diversity?
We promote diversity in many ways. We never exclude
female practitioners—generally female lawyers are more
resilient, careful and patient in handling business. We
provide them with strong support and have policies toallow women to work from home during pregnancy.
Our firm has also recruited some disabled employees
to the law firm to do some work within their abilities.
We have many minority employees, including
those from the Zhuang and Manchu ethnic minorities,
and Korean lawyers, and we respect all different
religious beliefs. I am Manchu myself. Having
employees from a range of countries is definitely
conducive to business. l
Spring Chang is a founding partner at Chang Tsi & Partners
and is based in the firm’s Beijing office. She has more than
two decades of experience as an attorney and focuses herpractice on patents, trademarks, copyright, and domainnames. She can be contacted at: spring@changtsi.com

SHUTTERSTOCK / CIENPIES DESIGN

Why did you become a lawyer?

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
www.worldipreview.com

Influential women21

Izabella Dudek-Urbanowicz

Borghildur Erlingsdóttir

MANAGING DIRECTOR, PATPOL,POLAND

DIRECTOR GENERAL, ICELANDICINTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OFFICE,ICELAND

Izabella Dudek-Urbanowicz focuses her practiceon trademarks, industrial designs and domainnames, and represents Polish and international
clients before the Polish Patent Office, Polishcourts and the European Union Intellectual
Property Office. She became managing directorof the company in 2016 and now leads a team of
more than 80 people. As head of the trademarks
and designs department, Dudek-Urbanowicz
focuses on trademark and design searches
conducted to check potential registrations. She
also drafts agreements and conducts negotiations
between parties, with a particular focus on the
fast-moving consumer goods, pharmaceuticaland retail sectors.

Véronique Durand-Rettally
COUNSEL, BAKER MCKENZIE, MEXICO

Borghildur Erlingsdóttir has served as director
general of the Icelandic Intellectual Property
Office since 2010. During her time at the office,
Erlingsdóttir has focused on international
cooperation and promoting IP in Iceland. She
also serves as the vice-chair of the Administrative
Council of the European Patent Office (EPO) andis the chairman of the board of the Nordic Patent
Institute. She has previously served as a memberof the EPO’s Board of the Administrative Council
and chaired EFTA’s Working Group on IPR.
Erlingsdóttir has a law degree from the Universityof Iceland and an LLM from Stanford University.

Valérie Feray
CEO AND FOUNDING PARTNER,IPSILON, FRANCE

Véronique Durand-Rettally is a counsel and chairof Baker Mckenzie Mexico’s diversity and inclusioncommittee. She has been working on IP matterssince 2001, focusing her practice on the fashion,
luxury and consumer product sectors. DurandRettally is experienced in brand management andtrademark protection strategies, IP transactions,trademark searches, prosecution and trademark
portfolio management. She led the team that set
precedent by obtaining the first non-traditional
scent trademark registration in Mexico. She isworking on a mentoring programme for younger
generations of attorneys and works pro bono withthe disabled community in Mexico.

French and European patent attorney Valérie
Feray founded IPSILON in 2001. Prior to thelaunch of her firm, Feray served as head of
the French IP department at Groupe Alcatel(today Alcatel-Lucent). She has experience inpatent prosecution, licensing and litigation,
due diligence in mergers and acquisitions, andfreedom to operate opinions. She focuses herpractice on telecoms, mechanical engineering,
physics and optics and is a member of many
associations, including LES and AIPPI.

Cecilia Emanuelson

IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT, CIPA, UK

IP COUNSEL, INTER IKEA SYSTEMS
BV, NETHERLANDS
Cecilia Emanuelson has held the role of IP
counsel at Inter IKEA Systems BV for three years.
Prior to this, she served as IKEA’s trademark
manager for 22 years. Emanuelson’s job is toensure all trademarks and branding associatedwith the IKEA business are legitimate andreflective of IKEA’s vision, and she is involved in
all aspects of trademark work for the franchisorof the IKEA Concept for the home furnishingsorganisation. Emanuelson is a member of INTA’s
board and a member of the association’s in-housepractitioners’ committee.

Julia Florence
Julia Florence is the immediate past president of
the UK Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys.
Until 2018, she worked as a senior patent
attorney at GSK, before retiring. In her 40-year
career, Florence gained extensive experience inbuilding, managing and defending IP portfolios
for pharmaceutical products at all stages ofdevelopment and commercialisation. She has
been involved in litigation in Europe, Turkey
and South East Asia, as well as oppositions andappeals at the European Patent Office. Previously,
Florence was an Examiner for the European
Qualifying Exams. Florence currently serves as
secretary to the IP Inclusive management board.
Continued on page 26 >>>WIPR Influential Women in IP 202022

Disability in law

www.worldipreview.com

The hidden stigma
Diversity initiatives are gaining traction acrossthe legal profession, but one characteristic has
been left behind: disability. Disabilities of all
kinds are rarely talked about in legal circles, andmuch less seen. Sarah Morgan investigates what
can be done.

ould your clients feel awkward if you
turned up for a meeting in a wheelchair?
That’s the question Husnara Begum
was asked when applying for a training
contract at a UK law firm.
For Begum, owner of Husnara Begum Consulting
and a former lawyer, it was an opportunity to turn thequestion on its head, and ask the recruiters if they felt
awkward with her being in one (the answer was no).
But it’s certainly not the only time someone with adisability—either visible or invisible—has had to deal
with uncomfortable questions.
It may come as no surprise then that nearly 40% oflawyers never, or only sometimes, tell their employer
or a prospective employer they are disabled.
That’s the conclusion of “Legally Disabled? The
career experiences of disabled people working in thelegal profession”, a report published in January by
Cardiff Business School, which surveyed 288 lawyers(241 solicitors or paralegals and 47 barristers) in the UK.
The data suggests that disability as a characteristic
has been severely neglected in diversity and inclusion(D&I) initiatives within the legal profession, says
Debbie Foster, the professor at Cardiff University who
co-led the research.
“What struck me was the sheer number ofdiversity initiatives in the legal sector and thesignificant investment in initiatives, reports, awards,
and celebrations. On closer inspection, however, it
became apparent that disability was rarely mentioned
in these initiatives, even when attention was paid tointersectional inequalities,” says Foster.
She warns that a “hierarchy of diversity priorities”

W

You’re in theright profession
if you’re an
excellentlawyer and—
unless you’re along-distancerunner—excellence is
not measured inendurance.

Francesca Rivers,
co-chair of IP Ability

appeared to exist, with gender at the top and disability
very much at the bottom.
WIPR’s own survey concluded that 72% ofcompanies with D&I policies covered disability, butjust over half of respondents believed their workplaces
were disability-friendly.
Foster adds: “It appeared that disabled people
were rarely catered for, mentioned or expected. Where
they were it was often assumed they would be theWIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
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Disability in law

23

SHUTTERSTOCK / SAJEE ROD

client, litigant or defendant—not the advocate or
professional advisor.”
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) of
England and Wales has followed suit with its own
report, also concluding that there’s a reluctanceamong disabled legal professionals to inform theiremployers of their disability.
In the UK, just 3% of solicitors declare they havea disability, a figure almost unchanged in the lastten years. Nearly one-fifth of the UK’s working-age
population has a disability, using the Equality Act(2010) definition.
While these statistics focus on the UK, it’s aworldwide issue. Daniel Onwe, lead partner at Daniel& Sophina and president of the Association of
Lawyers with Disabilities in Nigeria, believes that thelegal profession is still too relaxed when it comes todisability awareness.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 202024

Disability in law

www.worldipreview.com“There is just no consideration for people withdisabilities,” he says. But the association is helping
to challenge the status quo, albeit very gradually,
through its advocacy efforts for an accessible andinclusive justice system.
Onwe adds: “Ignorance and wrong assumptions
still underline the treatment given to those withdisabilities in the legal profession.”

Do you consider your workplace tobe disability-friendly?

17%

Bordering on bravado
For those in law, it’s not common to encountercolleagues with visible disabilities or to talk openly
about invisible disabilities, says Francesca Rivers,
solicitor at Cancer Research Technology and co-chairof IP Ability, IP Inclusive’s community for disabled
people, carers and their allies.
“Perhaps this is true to some extent of all
professions, due to the barriers posed by being disabledor a carer. I suspect it is particularly a problem in thelegal profession as a result of the demanding—often
unreasonably so—nature of the profession,” she adds.
IP lawyers, particularly litigators, can expect
frequently to work gruelling hours with few breaks
and some physically demanding tasks.
“In my view, there is a pervading attitude of‘toughness’—bordering on bravado—within the legal
profession generally,” says Rivers.
“A lot of solicitors believe you should simply
be robust enough to withstand those working
conditions, and if you can’t then you’re in the wrong
profession—which is of course utter nonsense. You’rein the right profession if you’re an excellent lawyer
and—unless you’re a long-distance runner—excellence
is not measured in endurance.”
It’s precisely this attitude to robustness that canstop people feeling enabled to speak up.
“Many employers and colleagues just assume thatpeople with disabilities cannot cope,” Onwe adds.
And, a culture of ‘presenteeism’, which isn’t
reserved for law firms, means that being physicallypresent is equated with commitment. This can bevery onerous.
“Because of this cultural mindset, firms focus onhours worked rather than productivity, which candisadvantage those with disabilities,” warns Begum.
Perhaps the COVID-19 pandemic will put this inperspective, providing some hope that productivity can
win out over presence and normalise flexible working.

Alien territory
Those with disabilities are disadvantaged as soon
as they set foot on the path to becoming a lawyer.
Disabled people’s experiences of entry into theprofession was “particularly shocking” says Foster,with only 8.5% surveyed reporting a positive
experience of recruitment agencies.
While firms have made massive inroads in termsof diversifying where they attract trainee solicitors
from, adds Begum, individuals with a disability are
effectively “alien territory”.

PRIVATE
PRACTICE

25%

58%

23%
OTHERS

50%

27%

Yes

60%
of solicitors andparalegals experience
ill-treatment in theworkplace, of whom 80%
believe it relates to theirdisability, according toa 2020 report by Cardiff
Business SchoolNo

Don’t know

“Employers need to think long and hard about
how they’re going to enable people to reach theirpotential,” she says.
For those in the UK, securing a training contract
to become a solicitor involves attending workshops
and summer vacation schemes, which typically have
fixed dates. From the outset, this poses a challenge
for anyone with caring duties, or a condition ortreatment regimen that makes certain dates harderthan others, adds Rivers.
“For many it feels as though the door is shut fromthe outset,” she says.
She suggests that candidates should be recruited
through a more traditional interview process, providing
alternative routes into the profession. This would also
help attract candidates from poorer socioeconomic
backgrounds, who might not be able to afford a place
to stay or train fares for that period of time, she adds.
It’s not just those beginning their careers who face
obstacles—even talented disabled partners, judges andQueen’s Counsels experience basic day-to-day barriers
and prejudice, according to Cardiff University’s study.

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In other words, seniority and achievements
don’t necessarily protect disabled people fromdiscrimination or exclusion.
“There are also more subtle indicators of success inthe profession that some disabled people can find are
difficult to achieve. These include subjective factors
such as looking right, behaving in a certain way, or
simply being able to sustain certain types of working
or networking activities,” Foster adds.
This is further evidenced by the finding that morethan half of the solicitors and paralegals believe theircareer and promotion prospects are inferior to thoseof non-disabled colleagues.
These obstacles don’t exist only within the four
walls of law firms—according to Onwe, architecturalbarriers are still prevalent in Nigeria.
“Most courtrooms and workplaces in Nigeria areinaccessible. Our court procedures are blind to therequirements of people with disabilities,” he says.

Because ofthis cultural
mindset, firms
focus onhours worked
rather than
productivity.

Zero tolerance
The finding that Foster found most difficult to accept
from her study was that disabled people’s career
experiences were highly dependent on one or two
individuals they met in the workplace, rather thanrobust and fair policies and practices.
“If they were lucky enough to meet a line manager,
supervisor or senior person who was supportiveand understood reasonable adjustments, they
were ‘fortunate’.
“However, the majority did not, and they commonly
experienced bullying, harassment, a failure to makeappropriate adjustments and inevitably, further
ill-health,” she adds.
Particularly for lawyers, Foster had expected abetter understanding of employment law aroundbasic rights to request workplace adjustments, but thefindings suggested this wasn’t the case.
“This was very apparent in interviews where
we found individuals had been prevented fromprogressing. We came across cases where previously
successful talented lawyers were driven out of theprofession or into self-employment,” Foster says.
It gets worse. Cardiff University’s report foundthat a significant proportion of disabled people haveexperienced forms of disability-related ill-treatment,
bullying, or discrimination, with 60% of solicitors
and paralegals experiencing ill-treatment in theworkplace.
Of these, 80% believe the ill-treatment was related
to their disability. Among barristers, the figures
were 45% and 71%, respectively, with examples of
ill-treatment including ridiculing or demeaning
language, exclusion or victimisation.
“Although IP firms, and other employers of disabled
IP professionals, can’t change society as a whole, they
can help. For example, employers need to make it clearthat this form of bullying and discrimination is just as
unacceptable as other forms,” adds Marianne Privett,
partner at AA Thornton and co-chair of IP Ability.

Husnara Begum, Husnara
Begum Consulting

25

The report calls for a zero tolerance policy on
ill-treatment and bullying of disabled people in theprofession, but this can be done only if there is a better
understanding of what constitutes ill-treatment.
Foster believes that opening up workplace
conversations is required to educate people—as was
the case with mental health—but it’s not enough torely on people’s goodwill.
“Clear disciplinary and reporting procedures need
to be established on what constitutes ill-treatment
in relation to disability and how it can be logged
and investigated,” she says, adding that professional
associations and regulators need to establish aworking party to develop further guidelines for
employers and disabled people.

Negotiating ableism
How can this culture and its associated barriers
be overcome? First of all, the profession needs toacknowledge it’s missing out on a pool of talent.
“There’s some resistance within the profession fromthose who don’t see the value of increased diversity,
but I hope we can win them over by explaining thebarriers some people face and demonstrating thevalue they can bring to roles in IP,” says Privett.
Many disabled people bring skills to their role
which are developed as a consequence of their
impairment or illness, says Foster. This can include
good interpersonal skills, empathy, dealing withdifficult people and situations, multiskilling andmultitasking, prioritising, and time management.
“These skills have been developed from years ofnegotiating an ‘ableist’ society and situations that do
not include them,” she adds.
Begum, who offhandedly calls herself the ‘poster
girl for diversity’—she’s a black and minority ethnic(BAME) woman with rheumatoid arthritis—turned
her disability into one of her unique selling points.
“It made me more resilient, more resourceful in theway I approach challenges,” she recalls.
The other priority must be to educate, inform andtrain personnel on how the law facilitates reasonable
workplace adjustments.
Foster warns that a basic understanding of what
‘reasonable adjustments’ are was lacking. “Put simply,
lawyers need to understand disability employment
law. Not only do they need to comply with it, theyneed to think of how its creative use would benefit
their organisation,” she says.
Most important of all is communication.
“Employees understand the difficulties they
face better than anyone else so it helps whenemployers listen to their employees and trust themto understand what adjustments need to be madewithout challenging them,” adds Privett.
Open communication can not only help
individuals get the support they need, but can begin
to normalise reasonable adjustments, encouraging
more diverse candidates to join the profession.
Without it, we’re at a standstill. lWIPR Influential Women in IP 202026

Influential women

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Annabelle Gauberti

Sidsel Hauge

FOUNDING PARTNER, CREFOVI,FRANCECEO AWA DENMARK, AWA, DENMARKAnnabelle Gauberti is a solicitor of England andWales, as well as a French qualified lawyer with theParis bar, with more than 17 years of experience.
She focuses her practice on providing legal services
for both contentious and non-contentious IP
matters to companies and individuals working
in the creative industries, including luxury
goods, fashion, music, film, television and theinternet. In addition to being the founding andmanaging partner of Crefovi, she is a founding
member, as well as the president and treasurer,of the international association of lawyers for thecreative industries (ialci).

Sidsel Hauge is a European patent attorney, CEO
of AWA Denmark and vice president of the AWA
Group. She manages AWA’s Copenhagen office,advising clients engaged in the chemical andchemical engineering fields. Hauge assists clientswith patent procurement including drafting andprosecution, and regularly provides litigation
support in complex infringement cases. Sidsel isan active participator in the IP community andis co-chair of AIPLA’s women in IP international
sub-committee. Hauge is also part of AWA’strainee programme for future IP leaders, holding
seminars for the trainees and regularly acting asa mentor.

Micheline Gravelle

Editha Hechanova

MANAGING PARTNER, BERESKIN &PARR, CANADAPRESIDENT AND CEO, HECHANOVA& CO, PHILIPPINES

Micheline Gravelle is head of the life sciencesgroup that consists of 16 professionals including
patent agents and lawyers. Gravelle’s practicefocuses on assessing new technologies, preparing
and prosecuting patent applications worldwide;and conducting due diligence analysis on
patent portfolios. Gravelle has academic andlegal experience in the chemistry, microbiology,
immunology and molecular biology fields. Her
clients include universities, research institutes,
startup companies and multinational companies.

Editha Hechanova is the president and CEO of
Hechanova & Co and focuses her practice on
trademark, copyright, and patent prosecution
cases. She also has experience in due diligence,
auditing, licensing, and franchising. Hechanova
is a certified trainer at LESI. She graduated witha degree in business administration, majoring inaccounting from the University of the East. She isa certified public accountant. She earned her law
degree from the Ateneo de Manila University.

Dinisa Hardley Folmar
ASSISTANT GENERAL COUNSEL, IP,
THE HERSHEY COMPANY, US
Dinisa Hardley Folmar is the assistant general
counsel, IP, at The Hershey Company, where
she is responsible for all IP matters globally. She
manages four direct reports and provides guidance
to the leadership teams of Hershey’s core andemerging brands. Before joining Hershey in 2018,
Folmar worked as the assistant general counsel
for trademarks and copyright at Nike. She also
spent nearly a decade at The Coca-Cola Company.
Folmar began her career as a trademark examinerat the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
and currently serves as a member of the trademark
public advisory committee to the USPTO.

Mami Hino
PARTNER, ABE, IKUBO & KATAYAMA,JAPAN
Mami Hino is a partner at Abe, Ikubo &Katayama and focuses her practice on patents
and competition, particularly in international
matters. In 1984, she graduated from Kyoto
University with a bachelor of pharmacy, and thesame year she qualified as a pharmacist. In 1992,
she became a registered patent attorney in Japanand in 1999 became registered to practise before
the US Patent and Trademark Office. In 2000, she
was admitted to the New York Bar.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
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Influential women27

Sara Holder

Tomoko Iwai

MANAGING PARTNER, MEA, ROUSE,
UAE

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT,SAEGUSA & PARTNERS, JAPANSara Holder co-heads Rouse’s global patentand technology practice. She has degrees in law
and biochemistry, and qualified and practised
in New Zealand before joining Rouse in 1998.
Since then, she has worked in China, Indonesia,
and the Middle East, and is now a specialist
in understanding the issues faced by, andencountered in, developing IP jurisdictions.
Alongside her technology clients, Holder works
with those in industries such as pharmaceutical,
food and beverage, and education. She wasinvolved in the first patent case to come before theIndonesian Commercial Courts.

Tomoko Iwai, executive vice president at Saegusa& Partners, advises clients on domestic andinternational trademark matters, as well as otherIP rights issues such as copyright infringement
and unfair competition. She is a member of
the Japan Trademark Association and theInternational Association for the Protection of IP
of Japan.

Sharon Hwang
SHAREHOLDER AND EXECUTIVECOMMITTEE MEMBER, MCANDREWS,HELD & MALLOY, US
With more than 26 years of experience, Sharon
Hwang is a member of the executive committee
and a shareholder at McAndrews. She practises
in all areas of IP with a particular emphasis on
patent litigation. She has extensive experience in arange of technologies, including medical devices,
electronics, and cellular telephony. Hwang ispresident of the board of directors at the Chicago
Legal Clinic, vice-chair of the Chicago Committee
on Minorities in Large Law Firms, and pastpresident of the Asian American Bar Associationof Greater Chicago.

Alpha Indraccolo
VP AND GENERAL COUNSEL, TEVA, UK
Alpha Indraccolo is a vice president and general
counsel, European IP and regulatory litigation, for
Teva where she coordinates litigation throughout
Europe. She has served at the company since2013 and specialises in pharmaceutical patent
litigation. Indraccolo has overseen a number ofhigh profile cases for Teva recently, including
the Tadalafil litigation, which went to the UK
Supreme Court and the Teva v Gilead case on
supplementary protection certificates before the
Court of Justice of the European Union. Prior tojoining Teva, she served as an associate solicitor at
Bird & Bird.

Azlina Khalid
SENIOR LEGAL COUNSEL, HENRY
GOH & CO, MALAYSIA
Azlina Khalid is senior legal counsel at Henry
Goh Malaysia and heads the prosecution unit of
the trademarks department. She is experienced inproviding clients with pre-litigation advisory workon trademark, copyright and industrial design
infringement, passing off issues and corporate IP
due diligence. Khalid is the editor of the firm’s inhouse publication and often speaks at seminars
organised by the firm for clients and the public.
She is also a member of various IP organisations,
including the Malaysian Intellectual Property
Association and the Asian Patent Attorneys
Association.

Guylène Kiesel Le Cosquer
MANAGING PARTNER, PLASSERAUD
IP, FRANCE
Guylène Kiesel Le Cosquer is a managing partner
at Plasseraud IP, where she leads the trademarks
and designs practice. She became the first woman
trademark attorney to be made partner in one ofFrance’s top IP firms. She has extensive experiencein trademark and design portfolio management,
copyright, and IP strategy and clearance. She
is president of CNCPI, the national institution
for patent and trademark attorneys, and has
been particularly active in reforming French IP
legislation. She was named Chevalier de l’Ordre
National du Mérite by the Minister of Economy
and Finance in May 2019.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 202028

Influential women

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Class of 2019:
Laura Collada, Dumont
Laura Collada, managing partner of Dumont, outlines
her path to modernising the Mexican law firm and her
diversity efforts.
into different cultures, traditions, languages, andreligions, and you understand that we have more incommon than we have differences.

I decided to become a lawyer when I was nine years old.
I admired a friend of my parents very much. He wasone of the great criminal lawyers in Mexico and I loved
hearing him talk about his cases and about justice.
I started law school having a very idealistic conceptof law. Obviously studies and work changed that, but
I could never have been anything else.

What’s the most difficult part of your job?
Trying to ensure that the office works as a well-oiled
machine. Lawyers and engineers interpret things
differently and work quite differently too. I am very
proud of the team we have built, but it was a bumpy
road at times.

How did you become managing partner ofDumont?

Have you faced any barriers or challenges inyour career?

When I was still at law school, I became an intern at
the Mexican Patent and Trademark Office (IMPI) andfell in love with the field. When I finished school, I
began work at an IP firm for a time. Later, and because
it came with the territory, I worked on international
trade but missed IP dearly.
I returned to work at IMPI, a job which I loved andhelped me learn so much. After that, I was hired byDumont to establish the IP litigation department
and, ten years later, I became the managing partner.
It has been an amazing journey.

When I started working in the legal field, it was aman’s world. In many ways, it still is. I remember ateacher telling me that he wouldn’t invest time infemale lawyers because they would hang their licencenear their baby crib. You must prove them wrong.

What advice would you give to those looking
to enter the IP profession?
Study, learn, and always ask clients what they wantto achieve.

What’s your biggest achievement?
Dumont has been in the market for 80 years but it
used to be a family firm. I was able to change that andtoday we are a corporate firm in which the Dumontfamily serves as an influence and an inspiration. I wasable to modernise the firm in many aspects, fromcreating a digital environment to certifying the firm
under international standards.

What’s the best part about your job?
IP is fun! I love that in this field you deal with somany areas of knowledge and innovation, as well aswith trademarks across many fields, including luxury,
entertainment, sports, and food.
Every single day you’re able to learn something
different and you’re able to help people andcorporations protect their rights and create strategies
to enforce these rights. You’re able to see the innerworkings of companies and understand that creating
value with legal services is very important.
It’s also great to meet a range of people—from theinventor you help obtain a patent for, to colleagues
from all parts of the world. You gain a small peek

How are you involved in promoting diversity?

I love that inthis field you
deal with somany areas ofknowledge andinnovation, as
well as withtrademarks
across many
fields.

Women have been a constant presence in Dumont(one of the founding partners was a woman) and I
have been able to empower them at the office.
I’m very proud to say that we are working towards
being certified on diversity and inclusion. There is nosalary gap between men and women at the office, andwe are an inclusive office.
Many things are still a work in process, but we areon the right path. Empowerment is about confidence.
Diversity and inclusion is about finding common
ground and acknowledging that differences are not a
problem but an opportunity to make a better society.
As inclusion strategist Verna– Myers once said:“Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is
being asked to dance.” lLaura Collada is a managing partner at Dumont. She
has more than 30 years of experience across the complete
lifecycle of IP rights. She has acted on several milestonecases and leads most of the firm’s large and complex cases.
She can be contacted at: lcollada@dumont.com.mx

SHUTTERSTOCK / CIENPIES DESIGN

Why did you become a lawyer?

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
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Influential women

29

Susan Kirsch

Monique Liburd

PARTNER, CARPMAELS &RANSFORD, UK

TRADEMARK COUNSEL, GOOGLE, US

Susan Kirsch is a partner in Carpmaels &Ransford’s chemistry team. She operates an
opposition and appeal practice, with a significant
number of cases before the Opposition Divisions
and Boards of Appeal in hearings at the European
Patent Office. Kirsch has experience in consumer
products, nutrition, formulation chemistry andmedical devices. She is a tutor for the European
Qualifying Examinations and is a committee
member of the AIPLA European committee.
Kirsch previously worked for ten years in thepatent department at Unilever.

Liane Lage
DIRECTOR OF PATENTS, COMPUTERPROGRAMS AND TOPOGRAPHIES OFINTEGRATED CIRCUITS, NATIONALINSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL
PROPERTY, BRAZILAs director of patents, computer programs andtopographies of integrated circuits at Brazil’s
National Institute of Industrial Property(INPI), Liane Lage has coordinated the office’s
programme to combat its patent backlog. The
plan aims to reduce the number of backlog
requests by 80% by 2021 and to reduce the averageterm of the patent grant to approximately two
years from the request for examination. Lage has
worked at INPI since 1998, also serving as head of
the organic chemistry division and general patentcoordinator of chemistry and deputy director ofpatents during this time.

Anna Maria Lagerqvist Gahm
IP/IT EXPERT, VINGE, SWEDEN
Anna Maria Lagerqvist Gahm is an IP/IT
law expert and head of Vinge’s IP/IT team in
Gothenburg, Sweden. She has more than 20 years’
experience working with IP/IT law. Her practicecovers contentious and non-contentious matters
focusing on commercial agreements, licensing,commercialisation of IP, open source, technology
transfer and litigation. She has a solid businessbackground, strong technical acumen and has
developed and led several successful IP teams. Prior
to Vinge, she was senior IP counsel/deputy chief IP
counsel at Volvo Cars, leading a team with global
responsibility for all IP.

Monique Liburd has served as trademark counsel
at Google since 2012. She focuses her practiceon international IP issues involving all aspectsof the protection, acquisition, and enforcementof trademark rights, general advocacy andeducation. Liburd takes an active role in several
in-house specific programmes, initiatives, andconferences. She also participates in informal
in-house attorney groups, where she focuses onbenchmarking with peer companies on diversity
initiatives as well as process improvement andapproach to trademark departments. Liburd is aboard member on the Council on Legal Education
Opportunity.

Melisa Litvin
FOUNDING PARTNER, LITVINMARZORATI LEGALES, ARGENTINA
Having practised IP law for more than 17 years,
Melisa Litvin has gained experience in all areas of
IP including patents, trademarks, trade secrets,
e-commerce, copyright, unfair competition,
franchising, and domain names. She advises clientsand litigates on behalf of them in Argentina andfurther afield, and she also prepares licence andtechnology transfer agreements. Litvin focuses herpractice in the fields of chemistry, pharmaceuticals
and biotechnology. She is responsible for filing andprosecuting national and international trademark
applications, and has handled national andinternational patent litigation.

Shanaaz Mahomed
PARTNER, SPOOR & FISHER,
SOUTH AFRICA
Shanaaz Mahomed is the head of Spoor & Fisher’s
patent department. She is the first black female
patent attorney in South Africa, focusing herpractice on patent matters in the pharmaceutical,
chemical and biochemical fields. Mahomed
specialises in the prosecution of South African
patent applications. She was appointed to chair
the South Africa’s Patent Examination Board(PEB) between 2015 and 2017 and continues toserve on the PEB. Mahomed is also vice-presidentof the South African Institute of Intellectual
Property Law.

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Shwetasree Majumder

Ana Isabel Messina

MANAGING PARTNER, FIDUS LAWCHAMBERS, INDIAPARTNER, PELLERANO & MESSINA,
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Shwetasree Majumder is the managing partner
at Fidus Law Chambers and her practice focuseson IP litigation, filing and prosecution strategy,
domain name issues and licensing. Majumder was
the first woman from India to be elected to INTA’s
board of directors, for the period 2013 to 2015.
Before co-founding Fidus Law Chambers in 2008,
she worked at law firm Anand & Anand from2002 to 2008. Majumder is a World Intellectual
Property Organization domain name panellist
and has been appointed to evolve practiceguidelines in IP matters at the Delhi High Court.

Ana Isabel Messina is a partner at Pellerano
Messina and has more than 35 years of experiencein all areas of IP law. She is former president of the
Dominican Association of Intellectual Property,
and is a member of numerous international
associations including the American Chamberof Commerce, AIPPI, PTMG, ASIPI and INTA.
Messina is fluent in Spanish, French, Italian andEnglish.

Amanda Michaels
BARRISTER, HOGARTH CHAMBERS, UK

Lorna Mbatia
HEAD OF IP, CFL ADVOCATES, KENYA
Lorna Mbatia is a trademark and patent agent andworks as head of the commercial and corporate
law and IP law departments at CFL Advocates.
Her practice focuses on both contentious andnon-contentious aspects of IP including anticounterfeiting, audits, risk management, clearance
searches, contract drafting and review. She is aregular speaker and trainer in various legal forums
including the Council of Legal Education seminars.
Mbatia is currently the chairperson of the INTA
Middle East and Africa sub-committee of the anticounterfeiting committee and is co-chairperson of
the INTA Africa Global Advisory Council.

Jayne McClelland
TRADEMARK ATTORNEY, SYNGENTA
INTERNATIONAL AG, SWITZERLAND
Jayne McClelland has been a trademark attorneyat Syngenta since 2013, where she has global
responsibility for new and existing trademark
projects in the areas of digital solutions, fungicides,
insecticides, lawn and garden and speciality
crops. She also has regional responsibility for thecompany’s North America trademark businessstrategy. Outside of Syngenta, McClelland leads
Basel In-House Trademark meetings with a focus
on the discussion of hot topics and creating
networking opportunities for local in-houseattorneys and paralegals. McClelland previously
worked at Abbott and AstraZeneca.

Amanda Michaels is a barrister at Hogarth
Chambers, with a wealth of experience intrademarks and passing off, copyright and designs,
breach of confidence and related commercial
disputes in the media and entertainment field.
She has acted for brand and copyright owners,
from multinationals to SMEs, authors andartists, fashion, film, TV and record companies,and collecting societies. While remaining in fulltime practice at the Bar, Michaels is a recorder andsits part-time as a Deputy Enterprise Judge of theIntellectual Property Enterprise Court. She is also
an appointed person, hearing appeals from the
UKIPO in trademark matters.

Wiramrudee (Pink)
Mokkhavesa
PARTNER, TILLEKE & GIBBONS,THAILAND
Wiramrudee Mokkhavesa, a partner at Tilleke& Gibbons, specialises in brand protection,
IP enforcement, and anti-counterfeiting. Her
practice focuses on IP portfolio strategy andmanagement and she represents multinationals
in the luxury goods, automotives, consumer
products and software industries. In addition to
training both government officials and privatesector personnel on IP, Mokkhavesa is a frequent
guest lecturer at Thai universities. Mokkhavesa isalso a member of INTA’s enforcement committee.

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Influential women31

Ann Nam-Yeon Kwon

Charmayne Ong

SENIOR TRADEMARK ATTORNEY, KIM& CHANG, SOUTH KOREA

PARTNER, HEAD OF IP, SKRINE,MALAYSIA

Ann Nam-Yeon Kwon is a senior trademark
attorney in the firm’s IP practice. For over 25
years, she has advised on and managed a large
number of trademark portfolios for numerous
companies in various industries. In addition todomestic matters, she has extensive knowledge
and experience in representing international
clients, in particular, European clients, across a
broad range of industries in complex trademark
and design matters. She is active in various IP
organisations, including AIPPI and the Korean
Trademark and Design Association (KOTA). She
currently serves as a vice president of AIPPI and as
a director of KOTA.

Charmayne Ong is a partner and head of IP
at Skrine. She is registered as a patent agent,design agent and trademark agent in Malaysia.
Ong oversees the patent, design, trademark andcopyright registration practice groups, as wellas the IT and e-commerce practice group. She
focuses on managing trademark registrations
and general IP advisory work as part of her role.
Ong also provides advice on and drafts contracts
in areas including licensing, franchising andtechnology transfer. She advised one of Malaysia’s
first subscription-based music, podcast andvideo-on-demand operators in respect of its entry
into the Malaysian market.

Uwa Ohiku

Rodger Outten

PARTNER AND HEAD OF IP PRACTICE,JACKSON ETTI & EDU, NIGERIAPRINCIPAL, OUTTENIP, COUNSEL &ATTORNEYS, BAHAMAS

Uwa Ohiku is a partner and head of the IP practiceat Jackson Etti & Edu. She has experience in all
aspects of IP law and practice, managing the IP
portfolios of numerous blue-chip international
corporations. For many years, Ohiku was the only
panellist from Nigeria at the World Intellectual
Property Organization’s Domain Names Dispute
Resolution Center and was a member of the threeperson panel that sat on one of the largest domainname disputes, involving a well-known cable news
network. She is the South West co-ordinator of
African Women Lawyers’ Association of Nigeria
and advises the government on various IP-related
issues.

Rodger Outten is the founding principal and IP
chair of OuttenIP’s trademark practice. She serves
as lead counsel in the firm’s patent and trademark
litigation practices, providing clients with advice
on strategic enforcement of IP rights, patent andtrademark prosecution, protection, asset transfer,and commercialisation. Outten advises clients invarious industries, including the financial services,
food and beverage, healthcare, life sciences andmedia industries. In addition to being the co-chairof the Bahamas Bar Association’s IP committee,
Outten also undertakes pro bono work for selectartists and artisans.

Ruth Olivares
PARTNER, LATINALLIANCE—ABOGADOS CENTROAMERICA,
GUATEMALA
Ruth Olivares is in charge of office administrationand coordinates the IP and product regulationteam for LatinAlliance Guatemala. With morethan 25 years of experience, Olivares representsclients in the pharmaceutical, hygiene products,
medical devices, and food and drink sectors.
Olivares focuses her practice on the trademark
registration process in Central America, as
well as in South America, North America andthe Caribbean. She has participated in several
administration processes for IP, including
revocation and objection to trademarks andopposition to appeals.

Laura Peter
DEPUTY DIRECTOR, US PATENT AND
TRADEMARK OFFICE, US
Laura Peter is the deputy under secretary ofcommerce for IP and deputy director of the US
Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). She is theprincipal advisor to the director of USPTO, andresponsible for all agency operations including
oversight for the four USPTO regional offices andmanaging 13,000 employees. She is playing a keyrole in the USPTO’s efforts to push the envelope
on artificial intelligence. Prior to joining the
USPTO, Peter was the deputy general counsel ofIT company A10 Networks.
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Reclaiming language:are IP offices behind
the times?
Last year the UK Intellectual Property Office ran
into the same problem that its US counterpart
faced three years ago: what happens when themeaning of traditionally offensive or abusive
terms changes, and how should IP offices react?
Rory O’Neill reports.

lot of thought has been given to offensive
trademarks over the past few years, withseveral cases taking the spotlight.
Since 2017, the US Supreme Court
has issued two landmark rulings which have renderedobstacles to registering “offensive” marks increasingly
obsolete.
In the EU, meanwhile, the focus has turned to
the role of the European Union Intellectual Property
Office (EUIPO) in guarding against the registrationof marks which violate “accepted morality”.
The Court of Justice of the European Union
ruled in February that the EUIPO couldn’t block theregistration of a mark for ‘Fack Ju Göhte’ (F*ck You,
Goethe) on the grounds that it was likely to cause
offence.
International practice seems to be turning towards
IP offices adopting more of a laissez-faire approach
when it comes to making moral judgements.

A

Behind the times?
It was curious, then, when last October a controversy
arose over the UK Intellectual Property Office’s(IPO) refusal to register a mark for ‘Queers & Co’.
The application was filed by LGBTQ+ activist Gem
Kennedy for her company of the same name.
Queers & Co publishes a magazine which explores
issues around body positivity for a LGBTQ+ audience.
According to the letter of refusal Kennedy received
from the IPO, the term “queer” could be used in a waythat was “contrary to acceptable moral values”.

The examiner
initially felt thatthe referenceto ‘queers’, andthe derogatory
message thatmight potentiallybe taken fromit, justified theraising of an
objection.

Natasha Chick, UK IPO

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SHUTTERSTOCK / FREEMAN STUDIOWIPR Influential Women in IP 202034

IP offices“I honestly had no idea that it was likely to comeup, because there are other trademarks for that term,”
Kennedy says. The IPO’s letter cited a report by
Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, whichclassified the term as offensive.
But according to Kennedy, the same report also
acknowledges “queer” as a reclaimed word which isused by LGBTQ+ people in a non-derogatory manner.
The case touches on a uniquely modern challenge
for IP offices—that of reclaimed words, historicallyderogatory terms that have been repurposed by thetargeted communities themselves.
In many ways, the area of the law and institutions
dealing with trademarks should be better equipped
than most to navigate this problem. Trademark law is,after all, mostly to do with subjective determinationsof how a term or mark is likely to be perceived by
the public.
Trademark examiners are trained to contextualise
language, images, and symbols, and make a holistic
assessment rather than stick too rigidly to apredetermined formula.
And yet, Kennedy says, the IPO is lagging behind
the times. For example, she had no such problem
registering her business name at Companies House,
which had already adapted its policies after acontroversy involving a company called Rebel Dykes.
In that case, which bears resemblance toKennedy’s, Rebel Dykes started an online petition
after they were blocked from registering a community
interest company under the name. Their campaign
was successful, with Companies House’s decision
being reversed last March.
Kennedy took a similar course of action, urging
the IPO in an online petition to recognise that the
LGBTQ+ community “should have the power toname ourselves as we choose”.
Like Rebel Dykes, Kennedy was successful and,after replying to the IPO’s letter of refusal, was able toregister her trademark for ‘Queers & Co’ in January.
But why was it refused in the first place, when there
are other trademarks on the register featuring theword, such as ‘Queer Spirit’ and ‘Queer Prom’? And
what does the controversy tell us about how IP offices
should deal with the wider issue of reclaimed words?

Political consciousness
As anyone who has followed US trademark law
over the past few years will remember, this is not
the first time this issue has arisen. In 2017, the US
Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) refusal toregister the name of Asian-American band The Slants
was challenged all the way to the Supreme Court,
producing the landmark ruling in Matal v Tam.
Part of the reason that case caught the publicattention was because it seems so straightforwardthat the use of the term “slants” by a group ofpolitically conscious Asian-American musicians
was not offensive. Its net effect was to challenge
discrimination, not to worsen the marginalisationwww.worldipreview.com

The burden
placed on
applicants forsomethingthat shouldbe rightfully
theirs makes
the processinequitable.

Simon Tam,The Slants

suffered by Asian people and people of Asian descent.
According to Simon Tam, one of the band’sfounders, their case demonstrates why no IP office
is “adequately prepared to deal with contextual
judgements in terms of offensiveness”.
“Context can be problematic when it is judged
through the eyes of an examiner, one who may nothave the same life experiences as the referenced
communities in question,” Tam says.
The Slants’ case, together with last year’s
Iancu v Brunetti ruling, culminated in the Supreme
Court striking down the bans on “disparaging”,“scandalous”,
and“immoral”
marks
asunconstitutional. That’s because, the court ruled,they discriminated based on viewpoint, and therefore
violated the First Amendment.

Moral determinations
Does the UK Trade Marks Act of 1994 place any
comparable obligations on the IPO?
“The IPO has a responsibility to refuse trademark
applications which are contrary to public policy or toaccepted principles of morality,” says Natasha Chick,WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
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35

However, IP offices must now adapt to the realitythat oppressed communities are inverting the abusive
language that has traditionally been weaponised
against them.
Chick points out that decisions are not always
clear-cut.
“This is a very subjective matter of law,” she says.
“In the case of ‘Queers & Co’ the examiner initiallyfelt that the reference to ‘queers’, and the derogatory
message that might potentially be taken from it,
justified the raising of an objection.”
After Kennedy availed herself of the opportunity
to respond with evidence contextualising the mark,it was approved for registration. The IPO could
therefore argue that the system worked.
Here, as in the case of The Slants, the burden of
proof was on the applicant to prove why their useof a reclaimed term wasn’t offensive. There is no
guarantee that this will work.
As Tam says, his band’s trademark filing identified‘slant’ as a term that had been re-appropriated by
the Asian-American community. In support of thatargument, he produced evidence including lettersfrom Asian-Americans, an independent survey,
documentation from Asian-American media outlets,
and an expert report from the president of theAmerican Dialect Society.
“That overwhelming evidence wasn’t enough,”
Tam says. “Instead, the USPTO fell back to relying on
UrbanDictionary.com, other joke websites (including
Asian-jokes.com), and dictionaries from the early
1900s, to support its claim.”
In his view, these processes are not fit for dealing
with the problem. “The burden placed on applicants
for something that should be rightfully theirs makes
the process inequitable,” he says.
SHUTTERSTOCK / MIRCEA MOIRA

divisional director of the office’s Trade Marks andDesigns tribunal.
The obvious problem is that, as with the“scandalous” and “immoral” marks ban in the US, the
IPO is then forced to wade into moral determinations.
Given ever-evolving moral norms, it’s not surprisingthat IP offices tasked with making a moral judgement
on individual trademark applications can findthemselves embroiled in controversy.
How does the IPO face up to these challenges?
“We are guided by case law in terms of interpretingthe offensiveness provisions,” Chick says.
“This includes recognising the difference between
marks which are merely distasteful from those which
may justifiably cause outrage,” she adds, noting that
there is also the need to balance the potential to cause
offence with rights to free expression.
If there is any category of supposedly “offensive”
marks that are likely to expose the risks of relying
on case law, it is that of reclaimed words. No-one
is arguing that “queer” has never been an offensive
term, nor that it no longer can be offensive in certain
usage or contexts.

Policy change
In the UK, Kennedy wants to use her success inregistering her brand as a springboard for a change
in policy.
“It shouldn’t be that the next person will haveto get 16,000 signatures in order to register theirbrand,” she says, adding that she has written to the
IPO seeking a meeting to discuss how their internal
policies might evolve in light of her case.
“It’s not enough just to grant my trademark, wewould like to see the policy changed,” Kennedy adds.
Whether the IPO’s examination guidelines are
adapted remains to be seen, but ‘Queers & Co’provides a useful case study of a problem that is
likely to crop up again. IP offices could do worse thanto give some thought to adopting a formal policy
around reclaimed words.
As Kennedy says, it’s “exhausting” for minority
groups to convince government institutions to
acknowledge a social shift that has been underway
for years. But, if it’s left purely to the discretion ofindividual examiners, it is hard to see how consistency
can be achieved across the board. lWIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

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A culture of
growth and equality
Borghildur Erlingsdóttir, director general of the Icelandic Intellectual Property Office,sees massive opportunities at a time when Iceland’s economy is at a turning point,
drawing on its old industries to drive innovation, as she tells Sarah Morgan.

s the pinnacle of gender equality, Iceland
paints a pretty picture. The Nordic
nation has been the frontrunner in theWorld Economic Forum’s Global Gender
Gap Index, which benchmarks countries according
to how close they are to reaching gender equality, for
11 consecutive years.
This hasn’t just happened in Iceland. In October
1975, International Women’s Year, Iceland’s womenA

refused to show up for work, to look after children,
cook or clean. It was a defining moment in the genderequality struggle.
Every year, to mark the strike, women leave theirworkplaces and homes and gather in the capital
Reykjavik’s central square demanding further
change.
Five years after the first strike, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir
became Iceland’s president, becoming one of the first

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IMAGES: SHUTTERSTOCK / IRINA BG

women in the world to be democratically elected as ahead of state, and Europe’s first female president. She
held the position for 16 years.
Continuing the trend of women holding influential
positions in Iceland is Borghildur Erlingsdóttir,
director general of the Icelandic Intellectual Property
Office (ISIPO).
“You could say that I have benefited from aculture of equality here in Iceland, where barriers

37

are perhaps not as high as they are in other countries.
“There certainly is a mentality here that a woman
should not be forced to choose between family on one
hand and education and a career on the other,” says
Erlingsdóttir.
She adds that when she took over as director
general, there were still people in the IP community
who thought it was curious that a woman with fourchildren could take on a position as demanding as

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this one, but Iceland’s history, legal framework andculture make this possible.
In 2018, the country’s Equal Pay Certification
law took effect, making Iceland the first country in
the world to require companies to prove they pay all
their employees equally, no matter what their gender,
sexuality, or ethnicity.
“Efforts to increase parental leave have marked
further steps towards gender equality,” says
Erlingsdóttir.
That’s not to say that Iceland is a gender-equal
paradise. While the gender pay gap has closed by 88%,
the gap still exists (although it’s better than a global
gender parity of 68.6%). On the world stage, none of
us will see gender parity in our lifetime—the World
Economic Forum’s index reveals that gender parity
will not be attained for 99.5 years.
Erlingsdóttir adds: “I am proud of the progress wehave made, but I see that there is advancement still to
be made. We can always do more to bridge the gap,
and we will.”

A fundamental human rightIt’s no secret that the IP community has traditionallybeen male-dominated, says Erlingsdóttir.
But there are signs that things are changing—she cites
the increase in the number of female director generals ofnational IP offices, as well as some higher management
positions in the international IP organisations.
There are positive signs in the innovation industry,
with “a new generation of female innovators coming
through with some potentially world-changing
solutions”, she says, adding that high-profile
Icelandic companies are taking measures to increase
the number of women in the boardroom.
”Things could, and should, be moving faster,” shesays. “Gender equality is a fundamental human rightand it goes without saying that we should all be doing
more to address this issue.
“It goes beyond the basic issue of fairness andwhether a person in power is a man or a woman.
Gender equality is also about getting the best results.
It’s simply good business,” she concludes.
Numerous studies espouse the benefits of greater
diversity and gender equality for business innovationand increased profitability in the private sector. For
Erlingsdóttir, there’s no reason to think that the sameshouldn’t apply to how national and international IP
offices work and do business.
“Increasing diversity and gender equality will equip
us better to find innovative solutions to overcome thechallenges we are facing in a fast-changing IP world.
These efforts just make sense, we cannot afford toignore that,” she says.
The ISIPO has always considered gender balance
when it comes to speakers at conferences andseminars to make sure that a diverse set of voices areheard on IP issues.
“When it comes to our staff, the ISIPO has generally
had more female employees so we have sometimes

99.5
years until global gender
parity is attained,
according to the World
Economic Forum's Global
Gender Gap Index.

had to think of ways to increase the gender balancefrom the other side and hire more men. I believe thatdiversity, in terms of both gender and age, is simply
good business,” she says.
She adds that there are many issues today that
require innovative solutions, and that these will not
be found in a homogenous workplace.
This rings true for those working in the science,technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
fields.
“Encouraging women to take on traditionallymale-dominated fields is necessary to break thebarriers that remain,” says Erlingsdóttir, adding that
more women are entering into science and researchand development, particularly in the geothermalenergy sector in Iceland.
Ensuring women’s voices are heard in innovationand creativity is absolutely vital.
To quote the words of one of Iceland’s mostinnovative and creative women, Hildur Guðnadóttir,
who became the first woman to win an Oscar (for best
original score in the film “Joker”): “To the girls, to thewomen, to the mothers, to the daughters, who hear
the music bubbling within, please speak up. We needto hear your voices.”

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39

director general I have always put a lot of emphasis on
international cooperation,” she says.
In addition to serving as the vice-chair of theEuropean Patent Office’s administrative council,
Erlingsdóttir is the chairman of the board of theNordic Patent Institute.

Fundamental questions

Increasing
diversity andgender equality
will equip us
better to findinnovative
solutions to
overcome thechallenges weare facing in a
fast-changing
IP world.

Erlingsdóttir believes this quotation should
resonate with all girls and women, whether in art or
technology.

The journey
Erlingsdóttir’s own journey didn’t begin in IP—
she started out studying architecture but soon her
interest gravitated toward law, in particular IP law
which fascinated her right away.
“I knew exactly which side of the table I wanted to
be on. I wanted to be involved in the fast-changing
world of IP and affect it on a policy level,” she says.
“There were opportunities in the private and public
sectors but I knew where my journey would lead.”
When a job opened at the Icelandic Patent Office(as it was then known), Erlingsdóttir was determined.
“There were a lot of applications, but I showed up
with my thesis thinking to myself: ‘I will get this job.’
And I did.”
Erlingsdóttir took a year off to study an LLM inlaw, science and technology at Stanford University
and, when she was returning to Iceland, the positionof director general was available.
“I am always open to new challenges and ways tomake my, and Iceland’s, voice heard in IP matters. As

Erlingsdóttir sees massive opportunities for ISIPO
at a time when Iceland’s economy is at a turning
point, drawing on its old industries to drive
innovation.
“Traditionally, the Icelandic economy wasalmost entirely dependent on natural resources,
but we are starting to see the massive potential forsustainable growth through innovation and IP,”she says.
The transformation of the country’s fisheries
sector into an IP industry is a perfect example.
Alongside creating innovative solutions to create
more value from each fish caught, the sector has
created a side industry in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics
and biotech, which creates value from what waspreviously considered waste. The IP industries
and sustainability are growing hand-in-hand, says
Erlingsdóttir.
She is aware of the challenges facing the ISIPO,
challenges that mirror those facing larger IP offices
as well.
Rapid technological and sociological changes suchas those currently seen are posing some fundamental
questions about the nature of IP and IP ownership,
she explains.
At the same time, these changes are affecting
the way IP offices examine, provide services andcommunicate. Although the developments provide
tools to increase efficiency in examination, increased
demands and customer needs mean IP offices need tochange their approach.
“We need to be faster. We need to keep the processsimple. We need to keep up and continuously
improve quality. We need to provide services thatare in line with the needs of innovators today. We
also need to find new ways to reach and engage with
our stakeholders.
“We cannot just sit and wait for companies tocome to us. We need to be proactive and maintain aclose connection to our stakeholders to help themprotect their IP,” warns Erlingsdóttir.
These are exciting challenges for all IP offices,
national and international, and very interesting times
for the IP community, she says.
In some ways, IP offices are being forced torethink their roles. Erlingsdóttir adds that we must
all consider the whole innovation process and how itcreates value for companies and society.
After all, the reason IP offices do what they do is tohelp companies create value for society, she explains,
adding: “We need to see ourselves as an important
chain in the innovation link.” lWIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

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Influential women

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Zane Pe- tersone

Renata Righetti Pelosi

JUDGE, SUPREME COURT, RIGA,LATVIAPRESIDENT, BUGNION, ITALY

Zane Pe-tersone has been a judge at the civil cases
department of the Supreme Court of Latvia since2015, with a specialisation in IP cases. Pe-tersone
regularly lectures on different subjects of law,
including IP, and participates in national andinternational task groups drafting law. She
worked on the new Latvian Trade Mark Law
and the Law on Trade Secrets and is Latvia’s
representative in the Association of European
Judges for Mediation and the Circle of European
Trade Mark Judges. Pe-tersone has authored
several publications, including her monograph“Civil Remedies for Infringements of Intellectual
Property Rights” (2013).

Christina Petersson

Renata Righetti Pelosi joined Bugnion in 1982
and practised with national and international
clients as head of the firm’s foreign department.
Between 1995 and 2012, she served as director
general of the firm, and has served as president of
Bugnion since 2004. Righetti Pelosi focuses herpractice on trademarks and is a frequent speakerat seminars and conferences with a special focus
on geographical indications and non-traditional
trademarks. She is a member of many IP
associations and has served as president of AIPPI
since 2018.

Lisa Ritchie
SENIOR COUNSEL, PHILIP MORRISINTERNATIONAL, SWITZERLAND

Christina Petersson was appointed chief IP officer
and head of IP rights and licensing at Ericsson in
April 2019 and is responsible for Ericsson’s patentdevelopment and patent licensing worldwide.
Previously, Petersson served as vice president
and head of IP rights legal affairs at Ericsson.
Since 2003, Petersson has had an active role inlicensing negotiations and has been responsible
for concluding licence agreements with the vast
majority of Ericsson’s currently more than 100
licensees. She has also been instrumental inpatent divestments and acquisitions, including
the setting up of patent platforms and pools.

As senior counsel for trademarks, copyright anddesigns, Lisa Ritchie leads a team responsible forPhilip Morris International’s global IP litigation
strategy for its reduced risk product portfolio. Her
practice spans the full spectrum of trademarks,
copyright,
designs,
unfaircompetitionand domain names, from global portfolio
management through to extensive litigation
experience. Ritchie has driven the creationand implementation of a global enforcement
programme to protect against unauthorised andinfringing use of Philip Morris International’s
brands on online marketplaces, social media,
domain names and apps. She currently serves as
the co-chair of INTA’s Leadership Meeting 2020.

Arty Rajendra

Sabine Rojahn

PARTNER AND HEAD OF IP DISPUTES,OSBORNE CLARKE, UK

OF COUNSEL, TAYLOR WESSING,GERMANY

Arty Rajendra became a qualified lawyer in 1997
and was promoted to partner at Rouse in 2004
where she later headed the firm’s UK litigation
practice. In 2017, she joined Osborne Clarke asa partner and UK head of IP disputes. She is thesecretary of the Intellectual Property Lawyers’
Association (IPLA) and has represented the IPLAat meetings of the Intellectual Property Enterprise
Court users committee.

Sabine Rojahn is of counsel at Taylor Wessing
and has been working in IP law for more than 30
years, acting in many cases in Germany. Rojahn
established the firm’s IP group. She is fluent inGerman and English. She has often representedclients in the IT and pharmaceutical industries
and is part of the firm’s China group.

CHIEF IP OFFICER, ERICSSON, SWEDENWIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
www.worldipreview.com

Influential women

Eleonora Rosati

Tatiana Shpakovich

OF COUNSEL, BIRD & BIRD, ITALYSENIOR PARTNER, DOUBINSKY &OSHAROVA, UKRAINE

Eleonora Rosati is of counsel in Bird & Bird’s IP
team, working between Milan and London on
copyright and trademark issues. She regularly
advises clients in the creative and technologicalsectors and is a tenured associate professor in IP
law at Stockholm University in Sweden. Over the
past few years, Rosati has authored more than
1,000 blog posts for The IPKat and The 1709
Blog, alongside more than 100 academic articles
and commentaries. She has also been asked
by inter alia the European Parliament and theEuropean Intellectual Property Office to produce
technical briefings.

41

Tatiana Shpakovich is a senior partner at
Doubinsky & Osharova and serves as the head of
the patent and trademark department. She has
more than 20 years of experience in the field of
IP rights protection and specialises in acquiring
IP rights and further protection, licensing andtransfer of rights. Shpakovich has authored anumber of articles and commentaries for leading
Ukrainian legal publications. She was also actively
involved in the national discussion of the draftIntellectual Property Strategy for 2020-2025.

Ingrid Slangen
Angela Shi
SENIOR BRAND PROTECTION
MANAGER , NEW BALANCE, CHINAAngela Shi has been a senior brand protection
manager at New Balance since 2015, working
in close collaboration with global senior IP
counsel to design and implement effective anticounterfeiting and brand protection strategies.
Shi has helped the footwear company implement
an anti-counterfeiting strategy in greater China,
aimed at stopping the exportation, importation,
distribution and sales of counterfeit products.
She also manages IP criminal prosecutions,investigations and enforcement actions, while
delivering training to law enforcement agencies.

Sally Shorthose
PARTNER AND CO-HEAD OF LIFESCIENCES REGULATORY PRACTICE,
BIRD & BIRD, UK
As part of her practice, Sally Shorthose provides
a full range of IP commercial advice and support
such as licensing, partnering and exploitationagreements,
research,development
andmarketing collaborations. She is a transactional
IP lawyer and provides advice in relation to theprotection and exploitation of a full range of IP
rights, both in standalone transactions and as
part of acquisition, divestment and investment
activity. Shorthose joined the firm in 2006 from
Eversheds. She currently leads Bird & Bird’s Brexit
initiatives and has spoken and written extensively
on all implications of Brexit.

HEAD OF IP AND LEGAL AFFAIRS,
SELECTA ONE, GERMANY
Ingrid Slangen is head of IP and legal affairs at
plant breeder and producer Selecta One. Slangen
has focused on IP matters for the company since2005, and was put in charge of legal affairs in
2015. She is chair of the cut flowers crop section
at the International Community of Breeders ofAsexually Reproduced Ornamental and Fruit
Varieties (CIOPORA) and representative of the
non-profit at the EU’s Community Plant Variety
Office.

Regan Smith
GENERAL COUNSEL AND ASSOCIATEREGISTER OF COPYRIGHTS, US
COPYRIGHT OFFICE, US
Regan Smith was appointed general counsel
and associate register of copyrights for the US
Copyright Office in 2018. As general counsel,
Smith provides legal guidance to the various
divisions and programmes of the office. Smith
has spearheaded the office’s efforts on the Music
Modernization Act, the first major update to the
Copyright Act in two decades, including advising
congressional offices during the legislative
process, and the subsequent regulatory process.
Her group also advises on litigation matters,
helping shape the US position in the ten mostrecent copyright briefs submitted to the US
Supreme Court and in multiple circuits.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

42

Influential women

www.worldipreview.com

Class of 2020:
Vivien Chan,
Vivien Chan & Co
Vivien Chan helps major multinational corporations
and listed companies to do business in Greater China,
as she tells WIPR.
What’s your biggest achievement?

I became a lawyer to bring positive changes andsolutions to my clients’ businesses.

I am proud that I have founded and built a Greater
China stellar legal practice over 35 years. It has beena rewarding experience and we pride ourselves on
having established and maintained a loyal and longstanding client portfolio of multinationals andFortune 500 companies.

How did you become founding partner ofVivien Chan & Co?
After I obtained a law degree from the Universityof London, I undertook a traineeship with a major
city firm in London. In the early 1980s, I returned to
Hong Kong and joined an international law firm as acorporate mergers and acquisitions lawyer.
I founded Vivien Chan & Co in 1985. In 1992, ourfirm became one of the first to be awarded a licence
for a Beijing law office. We celebrate our 35 years as aGreater China premier firm this year.
Our Hong Kong and China teams have an in-depth
understanding and knowledge of Chinese legal culture
and market dynamics. We help major multinational
corporations and listed companies to do businessin Greater China and the Asian region. The key is
we know China (which is a civil law country) and weunderstand our clients, as we grew up in Hong Kong, acommon law market economy.

What’s the best part about your job?

We promote
on talent,irrespective ofage, gender orbackground.

Providing solution-orientated advice and obtaining
success for our clients’ business needs.

What’s the most difficult part of your job?
Dealing with misguided competition.

Have you faced any barriers or challenges inyour career?
Things do not always work out as we expect. You
must have a good sense of humour and try not totake yourself too seriously. Events will always
happen, but how we respond to them can make all
the difference. You have to love what you are doing,
so that you will be happy when you successfully
tackle the problem.

What advice would you give to those looking
to enter the IP profession?
Be very good at what you do and, most of all, enjoy
the journey. God will take care of the rest.

How are you involved in promoting
diversity?
Our firm has a non-discrimination mechanism inplace, to ensure we employ staff of all ages, genders
and backgrounds. We promote on talent, irrespectiveof age, gender or background.
Our female lawyers outnumber their malecounterparts in the firm—this is not limited tothose in junior positions, but is true also for thesenior roles. l
SHUTTERSTOCK / SMARTA

Vivien Chan is the founding and managing partner of Vivien
Chan & Co, a Greater China law firm in Hong Kong and
Beijing. She has more than 40 years’ experience in mergers
and acquisitions, China direct investment, technology
transfers, information technology, IP and related tax issues.
She can be contacted at: vivchan@vcclawservices.com

SHUTTERSTOCK / CIENPIES DESIGN

Why did you become a lawyer?

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
www.worldipreview.com

Influential women

43

Justice Prabha Sridevan

Gretchen Stroud

RETIRED, INDIASENIOR ASSOCIATE GENERALCOUNSEL, IP, GILEAD SCIENCES, US

Justice Prabha Sridevan served as a judge of the
Madras High Court between 2000 to 2010. As
a judge, Sridevan issued decisions in a rangeof cases, including Novartis v Union of India in
2007, where she ruled against Novartis andheld that India’s section 3(d) of the Patents Act
was constitutionally valid. After her retirement,
Sridevan was appointed as the chairperson of theIntellectual Property Appellate Tribunal (IPAB)
between 2011 and 2013. At the IPAB, Sridevan
upheld India’s first compulsory licence order infavour of generic manufacturer Natco against
Bayer.

Kristin Stammer
PARTNER, HERBERT SMITH
FREEHILLS, AUSTRALIA
A partner at Herbert Smith Freehills in Sydney,
Kristin Stammer specialises in commercial
transactions including acquisitions, sales andjoint ventures involving IP, technology and media.
She has more than 20 years of experience and herpractice covers a range of industries including
fast-moving consumer goods, media, publishing,pharmaceutical, life sciences, advertising,technology, financial institutions, sport, fashion,
projects and construction. Working with clientson commercialisation and IP agreements, shehelps them manage, identify and exploit revenue
opportunities.

Eva-Maria Strobel
PARTNER, BAKER MCKENZIEZURICH, SWITZERLAND
Eva-Maria Strobel is a partner in the Baker
McKenzie’s European IP practice group. She isadmitted to the bars in Switzerland and Germany,
and worked in the firm’s Frankfurt office prior
to relocating to Zurich. Strobel specialises in
consumer goods, particularly luxury products
such as jewellery and watches, though she also
has experience in sectors such as agriculture andpharmaceuticals. Strobel manages Swarovski’s
global trademark and design portfolio, and has
also represented companies such as Estée Lauderand The Body Shop.

Gretchen Stroud has served as senior associate
general counsel, IP, at Gilead Sciences since 2008.
She manages Gilead’s trademark and brandprotection department, with responsibilities
for the company’s non-proprietary naming
process and global trademark portfolio,
including trademark clearance, prosecution andmaintenance. Stroud advises on domain nameissues, including a generic top-level domain(gTLD) defensive strategy and handles copyrightmatters and anti-counterfeiting. Stroud isactive with the Intellectual Property Owners
Association. For the past two years, Stroud has
facilitated a circles group through the Women@
Gilead Employee Resource Group. Stroud
previously worked at Cooley for 19 years.

Krystyna SzczepanowskaKozlowska
PARTNER, ALLEN & OVERY, POLAND
Krystyna
Szczepanowska-Kozlowska
heads
Allen & Overy’s IP practice in Poland, advisingon patents, trademarks and copyrights, bothcontentious and non-contentious. She is also arenowned academic and member of the faculty oflaw at the University of Warsaw where she led thedepartment of IP and intangible assets, and is also
an arbitrator at the Court of Arbitration of thePolish Chamber of Commerce. SzczepanowskaKozlowska has participated in research projects
financed by the European Commission.

Lynell Tuffery Huria
PRINCIPAL, AJ PARK, NEW ZEALAND
Lynell Tuffery Huria joined AJ Park in 1990,
aged just 16, and this year she celebrates 30 years
with the firm. She was the first Ma-ori patent
attorney in New Zealand and, in 2018, shebecame a principal of AJ Park. She specialises inall aspects of trademark protection, management
and enforcement. She acts for a diverse range ofclients, from Ma-ori organisations in New Zealand
to multinational companies in North America,
South America and Asia. As a leading expert on
indigenous IP rights and Ma-ori IP, she is thecurrent chairperson of INTA’s committee on
Indigenous Rights.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

44

Influential women

www.worldipreview.com

Elena Utkina

Alissa Zeller

PATENT ATTORNEY, VAKHNINA ANDPARTNERS, RUSSIASENIOR VICE PRESIDENT GLOBAL IP,
BASF, GERMANY

Elena Utkina is a patent attorney at Vakhnina &Partners, where she leads the patent department.
She has more than 35 years’ experience in IP
and is the former deputy director of Rospatent.
Utkina specialises in chemistry, biochemistry,
pharmacology, and pharmaceuticals. In addition,
she is one of the developers of the Patent
Prosecution Highway between Rospatent and theJapan Patent Office.

Alissa Zeller has held the role of senior vicepresident global IP at BASF since January
2019. She has worked in IP for the chemicalcompany since 2001, spanning a wide range of
responsibilities including patenting, global IP
litigation, IP contracts, mergers and acquisitions
and digital IP. In her current role, she also focuseson organisational transformation, IP advocacy
and global people development. She is an active
member of the D&I League of BASF and a strong
advocate for the advancement of women.   

Sarah Wright
PARTNER, HEAD OF IP, CMS, UK
Sarah Wright is head of IP at CMS, advising clientsin the technology, media and communications,
life sciences, fashion and retail sectors. She
handles a broad range of IP from devising filingstrategies, conducting clearances searches andmanaging international portfolios, through toadvising on all types of contentious matters before
the UK and EU IP offices and UK courts. Wrightalso has experience of non-contentious mattersand advises agencies and brands on advertising
issues. As co-founder of CMS equIP, the firm’s
tech startup programme, Wright advises morethan 100 UK startups within the tech and life
sciences sectors.

Sharmaine Wu
DIRECTOR OF PATENTS,
DESIGNS AND PLANT VARIETIES,INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OFFICE
OF SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE
Sharmaine Wu is director of patents, designs andplant varieties at the Intellectual Property Office ofSingapore (IPOS). She led the launch of SG Patent
Fast Track, a pilot programme to accelerate grantsof patent applications in all technology fields inas fast as six months. Prior to this, she served as
director of IP management and markets at IPOS,
where she created a new department to lead thedevelopment of IP monetisation at the office.
In this role, she helped to launch programmes
including an IP-centric private equity fund and apartnership with Lloyd’s Asia on IP insurance.

Dilek Zeybel
MANAGING PARTNER, ORBIS IP &
LAW, TURKEY
Dilek Zeybel is one of the managing partners
at Orbis IP & Law responsible for all areasof obtaining and enforcing IP rights forinternational clients. She specialises in managing
large portfolios for companies including Evonik,
Alibaba Group, Asics Corporation, Gianfranco
Ferré and Jacobs Douwe Egberts. Zeybel is a native
German speaker and graduated in Germany at the
University of Siegen.

Ashley Zhao
PARTNER, AWA ASIA, CHINA
Ashley Zhao has been practising Chinese IP law
since 2005 and was admitted to the Chinese Bar
in 2008. At AWA Asia, she is regularly involved inboth contentious and non-contentious IP matters,
specialising in trademark, copyright, domain
name, internet law and anti-unfair competition
matters. Zhao has extensive experience before
the Trademark Office of the National Intellectual
Property Administration of China, and representsclients in the food and beverage, software and IT,
and media and entertainment sectors. l

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

Driving change

www.worldipreview.com

45

Evolving inclusivity—
designing a modern
platform for success for all
The categorisation of individuals due to gender, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation
doesn’t encourage equality and we should be working harder to inspire both men
and women to drive real change, says Karen Fraser of UDL Intellectual Property.

I

More harm than good?
New research from the University of Edinburgh(“Breaking Glass: Toward a Gendered Analysis of
Entrepreneurial Leadership” by Harrison, Leitch andMcAdam, 2020) suggests that a key barrier to female
success is women-only networking groups or events,
which might do us more harm than good.
While such women-only business networks aim
to connect and empower us to achieve our goals, arethey now outdated, inadvertently reinforcing the ageold divisions that we seek to change?
I accept that, outside the business world, segregated
support groups relating to issues such as health may well
be relevant and are to be encouraged. Events targeting
girls and young women to consider careers in previously
male-dominated sectors are also hugely important.

Our profession
needs leadershipand management
teams withthe skills andknowledge
to effectively
encourage
and develop
all people,
irrespectiveof gender orbackground.

In our profession, I believe that it’s up to us“influential people” to lead boldly from the front, toensure that the most deserving people are always able
to reach the top. I know many women who feel thesame way—some even refuse to attend women-onlybusiness events out of principle.
Our focus should be on breaking down traditional
business structures and environments. This means
ensuring a strong female presence at historicallymale-dominated industry events and starting topervade exclusive networking groups. We also needto spot instances of cultural bias and move towards
eradicating them. This could well start with moving
away from the women-only networks which serve tosideline us.
In addition, such networks don’t support otherminority groups. No matter their gender, ethnicity,
sexuality or disability, everyone should be able toachieve their goals. Since the legal sector is currently
dominated by men—the very people we’re unlikely toreach with women-only networks and at “women in…”
events—we need to evolve towards a more inclusive
mindset. (I accept that “women in…” events are, intheory, open to men, but the name suggests otherwise.)
There are some simple steps we can take, rightnow, to inspire change and encourage inclusivity:• Join inclusive business networks and attend
inclusive events. A true mix of people should
become the new normal.
• Use our positions of influence to have a positiveeffect on our younger colleagues by supporting andchampioning those hardest-working, irrespectiveof who they are, and teaching leadership qualities.
• Have a voice: make bold statements and continue todrive change and strive for inclusivity, breaking down
traditional structures and calling out segregation.
It’s time for women’s contributions to berecognised and celebrated alongside everyone
else’s. The categorisation of individuals because ofgender, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation doesn’t
encourage equality. In 2020, being a “woman in…”
isn’t the unique selling point that will help us to truly
make our mark in this industry. l
WIPR’s Influential Women in IP events are open to all.

Karen Fraser is a partner at UDL Intellectual Property
and is a European and chartered (UK) patent attorney. She
specialises in patent matters relating to computer softwareand hardware, media streaming, and telecoms. She can becontacted at: kgf@udl.co.uk

SHUTTERSTOCK / JHENG YAO

have been a patent attorney for morethan 15 years, specialising in technology,
media and telecoms. My career started in
Chennai, India, before I relocated to the
UK in 2006. As an Indian woman, I’ve experienced myfair share of barriers to overcome in my career. I’ve had
a number of mentors during this time who have played
central roles in helping me progress to where I am today.
I’m proud to be part of this publication,
surrounded by others who are driving inclusivity. Yet,
I want to be recognised not for my gender, or where
I’m from, but for my achievements, held up to thesame standards as anyone else.
Bold ideas are now required to continue progressing
and my hope is that by evolving further we can inspire
great change, and this means continuing to push fordiversity in traditionally male-dominated industries,
making it normal for a mix of genders, ethnicities andmore to be present in all groups and at all events.
I couldn’t agree more with what Andrea Brewster,lead executive officer of the IP Inclusive initiative,
said in the Chartered Institute of Trade Mark
Attorneys (CITMA) review February 2020 edition:“More diverse and inclusive teams are not justhappier, they perform better.”Our profession needs leadership and management
teams with the skills and knowledge to effectively
encourage and develop all people, irrespective ofgender or background. The action required by thoseof us in current or future leadership positions toachieve this doesn’t seem specific to female leaders,so we should be working harder to engage and inspire
both men and women to drive real change.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

46

Diversity in law

www.worldipreview.com

The great exodus
Bullying, a dearth of opportunities and lower
pay are just some of the reasons why the legal
profession is bleeding its minority groups.
Sarah Morgan investigates.

hen I started writing this feature, I
thought it would be like any other.
Without getting emotionally involved,
I’d briefly introduce the problems,
discuss them a little using quotes and statistics, andprovide the possible solutions, before tying it up witha neat little conclusory bow.
That’s not what happened. I got caught up in thestories and the figures. There’s no single answer to why
women and minorities are leaving the legal profession
in droves and there’s no simple way to halt it.
We think of the legal profession as traditional, but
still forward-looking and willing to adapt. Why thenhave one in three women been sexually harassed in aworkplace context? Why is the legal profession in the
UK plagued by a “culture of fear” around reporting
sexual harassment and bullying? And why does the pay
gap still exist? These are questions I want answers to.
So, instead of a “normal” feature where I set out
the options to solve the problem, I’ve decided insteadto provide the stories of women, both named andunnamed, who have experienced discrimination,harassment and bullying. Backed up with statistics,
this should hopefully highlight the issues at the heartof this dilemma and show this is not a problem for aselect few.

W

An insidious issue“When I first graduated, it was common for my firm
to have Friday night drinks with the partners. This wasbasically a way to socialise with the partners and beseen—because this was largely how work was allocated.
“Combine that with a lot of alcohol and … nothing
good happened,” says Jayne Durden, founder of
Acuitis Consulting.
That’s not her only story, but it’s one that sadly
rings true for many.
She adds: “At the same firm I was once asked tocome to a client meeting (I was so flattered) and told
to ‘wear that red skirt of yours because the client will
like it’ (I was crushed).
“Later, when I came into a client meeting, I
was asked to take the coffee order, completely

Women I know
who are leaving
the law are doing
so because
they don’t feelthat they canbe themselves
within the legal
industry.

Jayne Durden,
Acuitis Consulting

undermining the role I thought I had in leading one
aspect of work for this client.”
Two in five of the respondents to WIPR’s survey
said they’ve felt discriminated against during theirtime in the legal profession. Only 14% of those who felt
discriminated against reported the discrimination. For
those who do report, the consequences can be grim.
“I reported it, but not officially. I spoke about itwith a department head but I refused to file a formal
report as those involved in the discrimination wereinvolved in decisions affecting whether I would bepromoted,” says one respondent.
Another adds that even though she did report
the discrimination, nothing was done. She says: “I
was told they would do an investigation, but all theinvestigation included was talking to the person thecomplaint was made against and it turned into a ‘hesaid, she said’ situation.
“With the other person being senior, the firm took
their side.”Jean Lee, president and CEO of Minority Corporate
Counsel Association (MCCA) in the US, believes this isalmost par for the course for the majority of minority
lawyers. “No-one will ever talk about it openly, because
it’s detrimental to your career,” she says.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

Diversity in law

www.worldipreview.com

SHUTTERSTOCK / ALEXANDRA GIESE

She’s echoed by a lawyer from South Africa,
who knows of people who believe they’ve been
discriminated against but didn’t report because theyfelt they wouldn’t be taken seriously, were likely to be
victimised, or that reporting would be detrimental totheir careers.
“The way forward for them was to leave theprofession,” she adds.
And, while the #MeToo movement against sexual
harassment and assault has made impressive strides toraise awareness and empower women, it’s not enough.
The UK’s legal profession is plagued by a “cultureof fear” around reporting sexual harassment andbullying, according to the Association of Women
Barristers in a 2019 report.
Co-authored by Lynne Townley, lecturer at theCity Law School, University of London and circuit
judge Katy Kaul, “Moving towards a zero-tolerance
attitude to harassment and bullying at the Bar”
followed a roundtable during which participants said
they’d observed several practices which “created an
atmosphere that permitted harassment and bullying
to thrive”.
Townley knows of many cases of discrimination.
“One student was quizzed about her ethnic background47

to such an extent during a scholarship interview that
she is considering leaving the profession,” she recalls.
She adds that bullying and harassment play apart in the retention of women and black, Asian, andminority ethnic (BAME) people at the Bar.
“Women and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in relation to the proportion they are insociety and will remain so for many years to come.
For instance, there are fewer than 35 BAME women insilk—out of around 1,700 in silk at the present time,”
she adds.
This type of situation is certainly not limited to
the UK—in a wider study, encompassing nearly 7,000
individuals across the spectrum of legal workplacesfrom 135 countries, the International Bar Association
reported bleak findings.
Approximately one in two female respondents
and one in three male respondents had been bullied
in connection with their employment, while one
in three female respondents had been sexuallyharassed in a workplace context, as had one in 14
male respondents.
One-third of those who had been sexually harassed
and 65% of those who had been bullied had left, orwere considering leaving, their workplaces.

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Diversity in law

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Double standards
Women are paid less than men for the same work. I’m
not going to cite all the figures here, but since 2018,
companies with more than 250 employees have beenrequired to publish figures on their gender pay gap.
Little progress has been made since then.
In-house teams are certainly not exempt fromthis. US-based male counsels’ average base salary
was $19,000 more per year than that of their female
counterparts, according to an April report from legal
research firm Major, Lindsey & Africa. The gap widens
when taking into account total cash compensation,
including bonuses, with male counsels’ annual cash
compensation 11.4% higher than their women peers’.
It’s more difficult to source figures on theethnicity, sexuality, socioeconomic and disability pay
gaps in the legal profession but a few firms in the UK
have voluntarily published their pay gaps. Again, you
can see the divide.
Not only are women and minorities generally paidless than their white male counterparts, but they’reoffered fewer opportunities to advance.
“You Can’t Change What You Can’t See:
Interrupting Racial & Gender Bias in the Legal
Profession”, a report from the MCCA and theAmerican Bar Association’s Commission on Women

There’s nosingle answer
to why womenand minorities
are leaving thelegal profession
in droves andthere’s no simple
way to halt it.

Neither agree
nor disagree

35%

Improved
Worsened

40%

Agree

2%
2%

61%

 o you agree that being part of aD
minority is a barrier to progression?

22%

Since you joined the company, do you feelthat the environment for minority groups
in your workplace has:

16%

Disagree

Stayed the same
No answer

in the Profession in 2018, found that gender and racial
bias existed in all seven basic workplace processes,
including promotion, fair performance evaluations
and access to networking opportunities.
The South African lawyer says that the studies
indicated that the women and minority lawyers
felt that a lack of exposure to high worth cases andrelegation to low worth assignments limited theirability to progress through the ranks.
At the same time, the women surveyed felt thatthey are held to higher standards than their malecolleagues. For female minority lawyers, it’s a double
whammy as they indicated that there is no margin forerror and that mistakes are unforgivable in their case.
These findings compounded their stress levels andresulted in their leaving law firms.
The MCCA’s report states that women and menof colour, and white women, believe they have to go“above and beyond” to get the same recognition andrespect as their colleagues.
Attributes prized in men can often be quite

15%

Strongly
agree

4%

3%

Strongly
disagreeNo answer

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
www.worldipreview.com

Diversity in law

Have you ever felt disadvantaged during
your time in the legal profession on
account of being part of a minority?

 Have you ever felt discriminatedagainst during your time in thelegal profession?

7%

47%
46%

Law firms arelooking for ways
to improve
because clientsare demanding
it. If clients don’t
demand it, whychange what
doesn’t appear
to be broken?

49

9%

40%

51%

Jean Lee, MCCA

Yes

No

Prefer not to say

dangerous for women—as a woman, have you everbeen called bossy, too sensitive, or bitchy? Probably,
and you’re not alone.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama, in her book
“Becoming”, writes: “I was female, black, and strong,which to certain people, maintaining a certain mindset,
translated only to ‘angry’ … I was now starting to actually
feel a bit angry.”For Durden, in one place she worked, men were
often outspoken and quite aggressive in the meetingroom but when women did similar, they werecriticised as being “shrill and emotional” and one
woman was told she needed to “calm down”.
“Women I know who are leaving the law are doing
so because they don’t feel that they can be themselves
within the legal industry. They perceive that to be
successful they need to speak and act differently,
rather than being able to be successful by being
themselves,” she adds.
There’s a tightrope to walk—the MCCA’s study
found that women of all races reported pressure to
behave in feminine ways, which included higher loads
of non-career-enhancing “office housework” and abacklash for “masculine” behaviours.
If you do progress (and that’s a big if), another bias
rears its ugly head.
“When men get older and more experienced, they’reat the pinnacle of the profession. Why are women in
their 50s leaving the profession? They’re being pushedout, they’re made to feel not as welcome or important.
Why else would they be leaving at the time when mostmen’s careers are at their height?” asks Lee.
After Durden was admitted to practise, she worked
at a large law firm with one female partner.
“She had her own ways of coping and keeping up.
I was shocked when she returned to work several days
after giving birth to her second child,” she says.

No

Yes

Prefer not to say

At the time Durden questioned this, and was quite
critical of her, she admits. “Now I see her having topotentially make choices and not wanting to be seen
as being ‘weak’ or unable to compete with the (male)standards for partnership.”Slivers of light?
Well, there has been some progress, but it’s certainly
not enough. Plenty of firms have modified theirrequirements for achieving partnership, says Durden,
adding that parental leave has helped to partially level
the playing field
Lee agrees that the situation is a little bit better
than it was 20 years ago.
“Law firms are looking for ways to improve because
clients are demanding it. If clients don’t demand it,
why change what doesn’t appear to be broken? It’s abusy world and why would you spend the energy toprovide something if no-one is demanding it?”
Recent moves by corporates to introduce toughdiversity standards “should have law firms scrambling”,
adds Durden, but this hasn’t necessarily happened.
“I’ve had partnerships say things such as ‘ourwork speaks for itself, we won’t have to worry about
diversity requirements’,” she reports.
Lee gives credit to the handful of firms that treat
diversity and inclusion as part of the everyday routine,
making it part of billable hours and giving credit for
doing diversity work. But when you look at the top
200 law firms in the US, Lee says, in 2007 versus 2019
you went from 93% Caucasian in the top law firm
partnership ranks, to 90% now.
With the massive amount of time and money
surely being spent on diversity initiatives, small gains
are just not good enough. The profession must takea hard look at what’s going wrong, particularly if it
wants to keep the people it’s trying to attract. lWIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

50

In the spotlightwww.worldipreview.com

Doing it for herself—
and others
After a career beginning with a dramatic trial
and two decades of experience, Stacy Grossman
decided to strike out on her own and start a law
firm. Here, she talks to Influential Women in IP
about the steep learning curve and figuring out
how to attract and retain clients.

counsel’s table with Ken and Ms Collins, waiting for ajury verdict. We won, and everyone told me to retire—that was in February 1996, almost 25 years ago.
We also worked on trademark and copyright cases,
and it was my interest in IP that led me to Fish &Richardson, where I became a principal of the firm
and focused on litigation.
I left Fish in 2005 for an in-house counsel
position at News Corporation. Working at a
media company with clients such as the New York
Post and HarperCollins taught me how to be abusiness-minded lawyer. I sharpened my trademark
prosecution, global portfolio management, licensing,negotiation and litigation avoidance skills. I also
learned how to be a smart client.

What prompted you to start your own firm?

tacy Grossman has always beenpassionate about brands, content andentrepreneurship. After graduating fromlaw school, she worked at a boutiqueentertainment firm and practised at a large IP firm,
and then went in-house at a global media company.
In 2014, ready for a new challenge, Grossman decided
to launch her own practice.
“With nearly 20 years of experience as a lawyer, I
had solid skills and a powerful network. I was ready,”
she says about her decision.
Armed with just one client and a great deal ofdetermination and excitement, Grossman ventured
into the unknown.
“From the first day, I was fully charged, excited not
only to offer my services to clients, but also to learn
how to build and manage my own business. Startinga law firm from scratch is not for the faint of heart,
it’s been a lot of work. But it’s absolutely been worth
it,” she adds.
Since then Grossman, who is based in New York,has grown an enviable practice, serving hundredsof clients ranging from individuals and startups toprivate and public companies, across many industries.
Influential Women in IP sat down with Grossman
to discuss her experience, the growth of her firm, andher thoughts on influential women in IP.

I’ve always been interested in owning a business, andwhen I left News Corporation, I decided that the time
had come to test my entrepreneurial skills.
A wise person told me: “All it takes is a little
business card and a lot of guts and drive.” I rolled
up my sleeves and gave myself two years to build apractice. The two-year mark passed, and I was doing
well, so I kept going.

S

What is your professional history, and how
did you come to specialise in IP?
I’ve always loved the arts and began my career in New
York as an associate for an entertainment lawyer
named Ken Burrows. I spent my first months as alawyer preparing for trial—we were representing theactor Joan Collins in a breach of publishing contract
lawsuit against Random House.
Less than a year after I graduated from law school,
I was on Court TV (a television channel), sitting at

What were the biggest challenges during
your firm’s first few years?

I discovered thatthe best way togrow is simply
to provide great
service andbuild lasting
relationships
with clients.

Having spent the past eight years as an in-houselawyer, I wasn’t in the practice of getting clients—I
was used to being the client.
The first challenge was learning how to attractclients and build my firm’s reputation. Fortunately,
I have amazing professional and personal networks
and tapped into them for support.
I spent time learning about different ways thatlawyers market their services and I discovered that thebest way to grow is simply to provide great service andbuild lasting relationships with clients.
Another challenge was figuring out how tobalance billable work with all the time needed to
manage a business. I’m still amazed by the volumeof administrative work: payroll, insurance, bookkeeping, conflicts, and so much more.
There was a very steep learning curve at the start,
and I continue to learn each year. On the bright side,navigating complex business issues myself allows me
to relate to my clients in a meaningful way—I feel
their pain.

What makes you excited about your work?
I’m truly passionate about helping clients of every sizebuild, grow and monetise their brands and businesses.
I also take great pride in owning my own business, andin all that I’ve accomplished in a relatively short time.
I love the substance of my work, especially when I
encounter novel issues. For example, in 2019, the US
Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) implemented
a controversial rule requiring the publication of
domicile addresses on trademark applications.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

In the spotlightwww.worldipreview.com

What does Influential Women in IP mean
to you?
To me, an influential woman in IP is someone who is
helping to improve our IP laws, to elevate the IP bar,and to train the next generation of IP lawyers.
I have the great privilege of knowing and working
with many women who are true leaders in the IP
world. One colleague recently argued her second casebefore the US Supreme Court.

SHUTTERSTOCK / MICHAL KALASEKI filed a petition to protect the privacy of a client
who did not want to disclose a home address. As aresult of my and similar petitions, the USPTO hasamended the rule.
Also in 2019, I won a trial before the Trademark
Trial and Appeal Board. The board ruled that usinga brand in connection with a pop-up restaurant
constituted “use in commerce”, allowing my client tokeep its trademark registration.

51

I know and admire women who develop IP
legislation, lead in-house IP departments, and work
to create balanced environments for women at big
firms and companies.
Many of my clients are also influential womenin IP. Although not lawyers, they are intrepid
businesswomen building brands, and partneringwith us to navigate complex IP issues in a digitaland global world. It’s a true joy to collaborate withinspiring, talented people in connection with thelegal issues that are my passion. l
Stacy Grossman founded The Law Office of Stacy J. Grossmanin 2014. She serves hundreds of clients, including startups andpublic companies, across a range of industries. Before establishingher firm, Grossman was vice president and associate general
counsel at News Corporation, where she provided counsel to the
New York Post, HarperCollins, BSkyB, Sky Italia and others.
She can be contacted at: stacy@stacygrossmanlaw.com

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

52

Championing diversity

www.worldipreview.com

Friends in
D&I places
Creating a diversity culture at work needs allies
who aren’t afraid to get a little uncomfortable,
as WIPR’s Tom Phillips discovers.

eth Marshall, a patent attorney at
Murgitroyd in Aberdeen, Scotland, has
no trouble recalling what happened
early in her career: while attending oneof her first conferences, someone made a commentthat was intended to be flattering but it crossed aline. On this occasion, an ally stepped in.
“I wasn’t in a position of authority, I didn’t havepower in the situation when the comment was made.
Someone standing up for me was huge,” Marshallremembers. On other such occasions, no-one had
stepped in, she adds gravely.
From a diversity and inclusion (D&I) perspective,
allies can be defined as people, most likely colleagues,
who support a minority community that exists
within a workplace.
An ally may be a member of a different D&Igroup, or someone for whom the concept of
D&I itself was previously alien.
What they provide to under-represented
communities, as Marshall discovered, can beprofound. If a law firm or in-house legal team has
any chance of achieving its diversity aims, allies canbe vital, bringing with them the added incentives of
positively affecting not only workplace culture but afirm’s image—and even revenue.

B

Leading by example
David Stone, global head of IP at Allen & Overy(A&O), is a proud advocate of D&I issues. He is very
involved in the firm’s LGBT network, A&Out, which
has more than 100 members and 700 allies worldwide.

Whether you do
it because it’s
the right thing,or because it’s aprofitable thing
to do, everyone
benefits fromincreaseddiversity.

Rachael Rodman, Ulmer & Berne

A&O operates a ‘women in IP’ workstream in its
global IP group. It is also looking at how the firm uses
barristers and is working with chambers on practicalimprovements to D&I.
The firm has been on what Stone calls ajourney to reach its variety of schemes, helped bysenior management making D&I one of the firm’s
strategic priorities.
“Allies are not just important—they’re essential.
It boils down to an individual’s or community’sagency within an organisation,” he says.
“Comparatively, not many people are in thesediverse populations. It should never be up to thosepeople to ensure that the larger cohort becomes
more diverse.
“It’s not just a management responsibility, it’s the
responsibility of all of us. And allies help with that.”

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
www.worldipreview.com

53

of feeling like we’re fighting for a few positions at
the top.”
Marshall, who is the carer for a child withdisabilities, believes IP suffers from many of thesame prejudices found in any other business areas.
“The more people there are who understand thechallenges these communities face, the more respectful
the workplace becomes,” she says.

What makes a good ally?
At A&O, allies are encouraged to be useful in four
carefully defined ways. The first is to “be aware”, whichmeans “educating yourself about the issues that are
involved with that particular strand of diversity”,
Stone explains.
Stone himself has a reverse mentor—a trainee at thefirm who identifies as BAME (black, Asian or minority

SHUTTERSTOCK / FIZKESRachael Rodman, partner at Ulmer & Berne in Ohio,
is a self-confessed “passionate member of D&I groups”
inside her firm and outside in the legal community.
Prominent is her activity in the Intellectual
Property Owners Association (IPO), where she is
vice-chair of the group’s women in IP law committee.
“Only through allies can you really advance thecauses of increasing the representation of women andminorities,” Rodman says. She’s driven partly by her
own experience as a young litigation attorney.
“I looked around and I didn’t see a lot of examplesof where I wanted to be. I didn’t know any women in
their 40s, doing big litigation, who had families andoutside interests.
“Now I’m in my 40s, I think it’s very importantto provide a path for younger women and minority
attorneys so that they’re not in the same position

Championing diversity

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

54

Championing diversity

ethnic), who he meets regularly to learn more about anexperience he has not personally lived. “No-one expects
you to be an expert,” Stone adds.
The second thing the firm asks of its allies is to beopen to talking about D&I issues and sharing their own
experiences with others, perhaps through mentoringor a more hands-on sponsorship of a colleague.
“Third is ‘be visible’, be that on an email signature,a marker on an office security pass or a flag on a deskthat says: ‘I am someone you can talk to without fearof judgement’,” Stone continues.
Last, and sometimes the “most challenging” Stonesays, is to speak out.
“It’s the person who is aware and has the selfconfidence, the language and the knowledge to standup for D&I in all its forms, when it matters,” he adds.
To perform this aspect of ally support requires skill.
“It does not mean challenging the general counsel ofa major client in front of her or his staff,” Stone explains,“but it may mean having a quiet word afterwards.”
James Skelton, senior associate at Swaab in Sydney,
believes being a good ally can simply mean creatinga safe and supportive environment for D&I issues tobe discussed.
Skelton, who leads the wellbeing and diversity
working group at NSW Young Lawyers, part of the Law
Society of New South Wales in Australia, stresses theimportance of engaging with policies created during
the course of a D&I strategy, so they remain relevant.
“Too often firms adopt an internal policy or sign
up to a programme, only for it to be listed on a
website and never engaged with again. It’s importantto keep the momentum going on these initiatives,”
Skelton says.
The loss to a firm that doesn’t deliver can mean
missing out on the best talent. The law students
Skelton speaks to tell him these initiatives can be
the difference between a student’s accepting or
rejecting a firm.
“To be a good ally, even the simple act of using
your influence in the workplace to provide a voice forthose knowledgeable on a D&I issue is so important,”
he adds.
It can mean something as straightforward aslistening. Marshall believes that too often, people
find it hard to believe that things can be as bad as aperson says.
“Listen and believe that what you’re being told isthe truth,” she adds.
She encourages everyone to seek out trainingor learn about unconscious bias. “We all have blind
spots, we naturally gravitate towards people who arelike ourselves.
“But if we become aware of it, we can start tochallenge our own assumptions and work against our
prejudices,” she explains.

The morepeople there
are whounderstand thechallenges thesecommunities
face, the more
respectful the
workplace
becomes.

business reasons, allies can also benefit from theexperience. In fact, the cold economics of operating
a business with a more diverse workforce are notsomething to be shy about, says Rodman.
“If you’re promoting diversity as an ally, you’regoing to benefit the bottom line in your organisation.
You’re going to have better teams, better results, andbetter outcomes.
“Whether you do it because it’s the right thing, or
because it’s a profitable thing to do, everyone benefits
from increased diversity,” she says.
“There’s a lot to be said for creating a business casefor a particular issue,” Skelton agrees.
Meanwhile, Marshall admits, she embarked onher involvement in D&I groups thinking she had agood understanding of the issues. What she found
was the opposite.
“I have learned so much. It has very been
eye-opening learning about the experiences people
have had both in and out of work,” she says.

Overcoming ally nerves
Beth Marshall, Murgitroyd

It’s importantto keep the
momentumgoing on these
initiatives.

Benefits all around
Whether they are driven by personal fulfilment, a
moral desire to do what’s right, or non-altruisticwww.worldipreview.com

James Skelton, Swaab

Despite the benefits to allies, minority groups andbusinesses, many lawyers may be reticent about
offering their support. The merits of ally programmes
are clear, but many people have painful memories ofsaying the wrong thing to a person and for some,not being part of a diverse group can be a barrier toparticipating.
Rodman identifies the need to bring men, especiallywhite men, to the table. “You can’t change the statusquo without buy-in from everyone,” she says.
Lawyers tend not to enjoy being outside their
comfort zone. What’s the message for those who
are worried about making a misstep, getting theterms wrong, or simply offending someone throughignorance?
Marshall highlights a barrier that she calls the“feeling of gatecrashing”.
“Because they are not a member of a community,
people can feel they cannot be a mouthpiece forthat community. But that’s not what being an ally
is about—these groups can do that themselves,”
she says.
“It’s okay to be uncomfortable,” Rodman says,
admitting that she has found herself in conversations
reaching to find the right word. “No-one is going tofault you for trying and getting it wrong.”“You know more than you think,” says Skelton,
who points out that his own experience of legal
training and early roles will be different from thosein the generation before him. This, he says, gives hima pass to contribute meaningfully to the discussion
and support others.
Rodman puts it plainly: “The worst that’s going tohappen is somebody’s going to tell you you’ve done
something wrong—and that’s good, because you’ve
learned something.”
It seems the trick to being an ally is the same as with
D&I in general: leave your assumptions at the door. lSUBSCRIBE TO
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56

Trailblazers

www.worldipreview.com

The best advice
For people starting out in any field, it’s importantto learn from the ones who are already making
their mark. WIPR spoke to some of the 2019
Class of Trailblazers about their advice for thoseentering the IP profession and the challenges
they’ve overcome.

What advice would you give those entering
the IP profession?
It’s great to have a broad legal foundation before
becoming too specialist. A good grounding incontract law and commercial litigation is extremely
useful. However, it is important to bear in mind thatyou need to have your IP goal from the start.
Lots of firms do not have significant IP practices
and it may be hard to move into IP later in yourcareer if you do not get some basic grounding inyour training contract.
Rosie Burbidge, partner, gunnercooke

Rosie
Burbidge

EmelieSvensson

Alena
Fischerova

Anna
Toh

Try to find a good mentor who will invest timeand energy in providing guidance allowing you tolearn, grow professionally and feel included. Don’thide behind inexperience but seek projects witha fair level of autonomy and responsibility. By
stepping out of our comfort zone, we learn betterand faster.
Keep your eyes and ears wide open, don’t be afraidof change and be humble, but not silent. Most of all,do what you love and do it with passion.
Alena Fischerova, associate, BomhardIP

ReginaOnwumere

AdraeaBrown

Abhilasha
NiroolaKatie
Goulding

IP is an interesting and rewarding field of practice.
The trio of important virtues to succeed in thisfield and the legal profession generally are honesty,
patience and diligence.
Regina Onwumere, associate, Aluko & Oyebode

Annsley
WardParamee
Kerativitayanan

Networking is an extremely important aspectof the IP profession so start networking right fromthe beginning. Giving back to society teaches
you a lot—get involved in pro bono activities,
legal aid centres, and legal awareness campaigns.
These activities will provide you with enrichingexperiences and help shape you into being abetter professional.
Abhilasha Niroola, principal attorney, Mehta & Mehta
Associates (MehtaIP)
Be authentic. Sometimes there can be pressure toact and think like others around you for the sake of“fitting in” to a firm or company. This pressure candull what makes you and your contributions uniqueand valuable to clients. So be yourself—embracewhat drives you, what motivates you and what you
are passionate about.
It may not always be easy, but ultimately, it willbe these things that will fuel your career.
Annsley Ward, counsel, WilmerHale
Don’t be afraid to take on a bigger role than you
believe you are able to handle. Many young lawyers
entering the IP field see each and every matteras big and unmanageable challenges, but with agood strategy, mentoring and planning you canmake one big task into smaller steps that are easily
accomplished.
Emelie Svensson, attorney, Njord Law Firm

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

Trailblazers

www.worldipreview.com

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced during
your career, and how have you overcome it?
As a young female lawyer, dealing with condescension
has been the biggest challenge. I’ve learned to take a
step back and focus on communicating clear legal
reasoning—most people will abandon their initialassumptions when faced with logic and case law.
Anna Toh, associate director, Amica Law
One of the challenges in my career is simply notseeing enough people who look like me and earninga level of approval simply because I don’t fit the“traditional” mould of an attorney. On a fairly
consistent basis, I encounter surprised looks whenI enter a room and introduce myself. While this canbe disheartening, most women of colour are familiar
with this feeling.
To overcome this challenge, I simply continue toshow up and be unapologetically me. I know that mywork is impeccable. At the same time, I actively work
to increase the diversity within the IP and legal spaceby working to shift mindsets.
Adraea Brown, director, legal–trademarks and brand protection,
Harley-Davidson

I simply
continue toshow up and beunapologeticallyme.

Adraea Brown,Harley-Davidson

57

I’m a crier. Happy, sad or frustrated—tears! But
apparently, it’s a no-go in the workplace. Here’s how
I’ve overcome it: if I’m going into something that I
have strong feelings about, I take tissues (or I try toremember to).
I have overcome the challenge by realisingthat it’s not my challenge to overcome; it belongs
to the person sitting across from me looking attheir feet.
Crying has nothing to do with emotional
intelligence, professional capabilities or strength ofcharacter. It’s just science. Deal with it.
Katie Goulding, senior trademark attorney, HGF
The biggest challenge during the first year in thisfield of practice is the fact that we are required to give
legal advice on a range of issues from commercial
viability and marketing, to vesting ownership andinfringement. Our work is not relevant only to filing
applications or prosecution work.
To overcome this difficulty I tried hard to
discuss with experienced people in the same field.
Always remember that real practice might bedifferent from what you think you understand byreading books. l
Paramee Kerativitayanan, IP lawyer, Chavalit &Associates

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

58

Success story

www.worldipreview.com

Finding yourown voiceMore women must take leading positions—
it will help companies become more flexible
and marketable in a global environment.
Gender equality should continue to be a
driving force in law firms across the world,says Melisa Litvin, founder of LitvinMarzorati Legales.

orking independently has always been
my personal goal. I studied at Universidad
Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, auniversity of international prestige.
It was there I met Osvaldo Marzorati, a professor
who would later become my partner in LitvinMarzorati Legales.
Many years ago, after obtaining my degree in law,I started working in one of the major law firms in
Argentina. To be my own boss, follow my own pathand work the way I dreamed, I knew it was necessary
to learn everything.
I worked for more than seven years in a place that
not only nurtured me professionally, but also created
my professional destiny. I worked overtime. I had
sleepless nights because of due diligence and legal due
dates. I travelled and attended meeting and congresses
representing that firm across the globe.
Over the years, I got married and had children, andmy priorities changed. I needed to be with my children
and, at the same time, fulfil my responsibilities atWwork. As a mother, I needed to be present at every
school event. At the same time, I had to represent myclients in court.
Although sometimes it seemed impossible, and it
was most definitely exhausting, I was able to do it.
We can achieve whatever we set our minds to. But
we have to be honest with ourselves, study, and listen
to our clients and family. Set a goal. Study. Work hard.
When you fall down, rise again. And again. We all
make mistakes. Start again. Do not quit but take shortsteps. Bill Gates got it right when he said: “It’s fine tocelebrate success but it is more important to heed thelessons of failure.”
The road is not easy but it’s worth it. Build yourproject, create your empire. But above all, during mypersonal journey, I have always tried to set an example
for my daughters.

A new direction
Fulfilling my dream of being able to feel accomplishedin both aspects of my life, Litvin Legales was born.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

Success story

www.worldipreview.com

We should
encourage
women tostrongly believein themselves, totake advantageof their roles
and make themost of it.

SHUTTERSTOCK / ZIEUSIN

The clients soon arrived, and the internationalacknowledgement of the firm marked a new direction.
Marzorati, who was also my boss at the law firm
where I worked as a young woman, became mypartner, building what today is Litvin Marzorati
Legales.
Since our law firm is managed by a woman, andmost of the employees are women, we have a different
view of market research. We add our touch, adding
customisation, flexibility and efficiency. We adapt to
the needs of each of our clients and provide personal
relationships.
As a team, we strive for excellence in every areaof practice. We have to do more than our malecounterparts to prove we are worth it.
In February, American actor Cynthia Nixon fronted
a profound and brilliant video for girls, produced forGirls. Girls. Girls. magazine, outlining the immensepressures women face in society. It went viral.
Nixon was reciting an essay from blogger Camille
Rainville called “Be a lady, they said”. Much like this59

video, we must encourage women to be confident andbelieve in themselves.
Clients trust us. They value efficiency, quality, andtransparency, and our firm has prioritised listening totheir needs and ensuring that the client’s success andhappiness is the foremost priority.
Litvin Marzorati Legales was created by awoman, in the male-dominated legal industry inArgentina. We believe that remaining true to yourself
and finding your own voice is the key to rising above
preconceived expectations.
In Argentina, and Latin America in general,
women-owned firms are still a minority. We
strongly believe that we should recognise theinherent difficulties in being a woman in a man’sworld. In my experience, being a mother andhaving such an important leading position has notbeen easy.
We should encourage women to strongly believe inthemselves, to take advantage of their roles and makethe most of it. While improving gender equality in theworkplace has been a goal in most countries, we have
not yet reached parity.
In Latin American, as well as in other parts of theworld, women are still discriminated against. This
is why it is so important for women to be in leadingroles and to communicate the difficulties faced ingetting there.
We do not say that women should have any
benefits different from those of men.
Now, our firm is competing with the major law
firms in Argentina. You can be your boss. You canmake a difference—and you should!
We must help each other. We must acknowledge
one another and become an example to the rest of thewomen around the world.
More women must take leading positions—it will
help companies become more flexible and marketable
in a global environment. Gender equality should
continue to be a driving force in law firms across theworld.
We have personally committed to this goal. Shortsteps will lead us where we want to be.
I am proud of each of the members of our teamand, of course, we are thankful to all our clients andcolleagues.
In my opinion, the key to our success lies in
effective and efficient communication. The firmalways attempts to make sure that our clients andall of our employees feel supported. We try to be as
responsive as possible to the needs of the client.
At the end of the day, our most important goalstands strong and unwavering: “Business is personal,
and relationships do matter.” lMelisa Litvin is a founding partner at Litvin Marzorati
Legales. She has experience in IP, focusing primarily on
trademarks, unfair competition and litigation. Litvinobtained her law degree from the Torcuato di Tella
University. She can be contacted at: ml@lmlegales.com.ar

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

60

Trailblazers

www.worldipreview.com

A bright future
WIPR profiles 20 talented women
who are paving the way for great
achievements in the IP sector.
ur panel of judges had to make someincredibly tough decisions this year
when selecting 20 Trailblazers froma much larger list. While each of thenominees is already achieving great things, thechosen Trailblazers stand out from the crowd with
their contributions to the IP industry.
In addition to working with the world’s
biggest brands, these talented women are playing
significant roles in ground-breaking judgments,
overhauling systems and championing diversity.
The selection from the UK is, arguably,
overrepresented—thislargely
reflectstheamount of submissions from UK-based survey
respondents. However, we’re looking forward toeven greater global engagement next year.
We wish our Trailblazers and the nominees thebest of luck in their future careers which, we’resure, will be bright and full of exciting work.

O

SHUTTERSTOCK / ANIGOWEBThe judging panel
Wendy Choi, vice president and associate
general counsel IP at Avery Dennison
As vice president and associate general counsel IP
for materials science and manufacturing company
Avery Dennison Corporation, Choi leads a global
team of attorneys, agents, and paralegals who
handle the IP matters for the company. She also
serves on the company’s North American diversity
and inclusion council.

Elaine Drager, head of IP and asset strategy
at Nokia
Drager is part of the Nokia Technologies businessgroup, joining Nokia following the acquisitionof Alcatel-Lucent. During her career, she has
been responsible for nearly every aspect of IP and
antitrust matters in a wide variety of corporatetransactions. Drager is a registered patent attorney,
who started out at Fish & Neave in New York City.

Laura Collada, managing partner at Dumont
Collada has more than 30 years of experience
across the complete lifecycle of IP rights. She has
acted on several milestone cases and leads most of
the firm’s large and complex cases. Collada focuses
her practice in the areas of fashion, media andtelecommunications.

Sarah Morgan, senior writer at World IP Review
A journalist with six-and-a-half years of experienceand a law degree from King’s College London,
Morgan covers all aspects of IP around the world.
She has spearheaded the WIPR Women in IP
project. l

Adraea Brown, director, legal–trademarks
and brand protection at Harley-Davidson
Brown, who herself was selected as a Trailblazer lastyear, leads Harley-Davidson’s in-house trademark
team and serves as vice president of H-D USA, theowner of all of the Harley-Davidson trademarks.
She oversees the company’s more than 5,000
trademarks, brand protection and enforcement,
and trademark litigation.

These talented women areplaying significant roles inground-breaking judgments.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
www.worldipreview.com

Trailblazers

61

Isobel Barry

Alexis BlackSENIOR ASSOCIATE, CARPMAELS& RANSFORD, UK

IP ADVISOR, CANADIANINTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OFFICE,CANADA

Isobel Barry began her IP career at Carpmaels &Ransford and, in 2014, qualified as a UK patent
attorney and European patent attorney. She waspromoted to senior associate in 2017.
Barry specialises in the pharmaceutical field,
predominantly focusing on small moleculedrugs. She advises clients on the full range ofpatent matters, but the majority of her practice
is contentious, primarily involving defending
oppositions and appeals at the European Patent
Office and supporting parallel national litigation.
Barry has been a contributor to IP Inclusive
since its initial stages and is currently a committee
member for IP Out (a network for LGBTQ+
people). Barry helps with the direction anddevelopment of IP Out and IP Inclusive’s Womenin IP network and their activities.
Over the past several years, Barry has been a key
contributor to the direction and implementationof Carpmaels & Ransford’s CSR initiatives,and has organised events supporting LGBTQ+
inclusion within her workplace.

Arpita Bhattacharyya

Alexis Black is deeply passionate about her roleas an IP advisor and educator with the Canadiangovernment at the Canadian Intellectual Property
Office and, in 2018, her contributions earned
her team a Deputy Ministers’ Award of Merit forthe programming developed specifically for IP
education in Canada.
For almost five years as a public servant, Blackhas worked with hundreds of innovators fromacross the country. She works directly with several
incubators and accelerators to develop and deliver
IP programming for their memberships. For the
Accelerator Centre in Waterloo, Canada, Black acts
as a formal mentor and specialist, and assists increating and delivering customised IP education
content.
Black isn’t a lawyer or patent agent, but has
been studying the subject of IP business strategy
for about half a decade. She has attended McGill
University’s summer IP educational courses, andhas taken online courses through the WorldIntellectual Property Organization’s online
educational programme.

ASSOCIATE, FINNEGAN, HENDERSON,FARABOW, GARRETT & DUNNER, USA

Ana Paula Campusano

Arpita Bhattacharyya focuses her practice on
all aspects of patent law, including litigation in
district courts and before the US International
Trade Commission (ITC), post-grant proceedings
before the US Patent and Trademark Office,and client counselling. With a background inelectrical engineering and biomedical engineering,
Bhattacharyya advises clients across industries
such as biotech, digital health, nanotechnology
and robotics.
Bhattacharyya was a member of the team that
represented Chinese respondent Hangzhou ChicIntelligent Design in two ITC cases, one broughtby Razor and the other brought by Segway. The
team achieved administrative law judge findingsof no infringement and no domestic industry after
trial in each case; both results were affirmed by
the commission.
She is a member of ChIPs, the Asian Pacific
American Bar Association of Silicon Valley, San
Francisco Bay Area Intellectual Property Inn of
Court, and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board Bar
Association.

JUNIOR PARTNER/IP PRACTICEGROUP DIRECTOR, ROCA,DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
As junior partner and director of the IP practicegroup of Roca, Ana Campusano focuses herpractice on all aspects of IP in the Dominican
Republic and throughout the Caribbean. Withher experience in handling large IP portfolios,
Campusano assists clients in the preparationof strategies, the defence and imposition ofadministrative and judicial actions, and brandprotection.
She also advises on the negotiation andexecution of licensing agreements, franchises
and all other IP-related agreements. Campusano
represents clients in the pharmaceutical, life
sciences, retail, and food and beverage industries.
In addition to managing the Caribbean IP
portfolio of a multinational beverage company,
Campusano has represented a renowned watch
and jewellery manufacturer in administrative andjudicial actions filed against a confusingly similar
trademark owned by a multinational technology
company.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

62

Trailblazers

www.worldipreview.com

Tine Carmeliet

Sher Hann Chua

ASSOCIATE, ALLEN & OVERY,BELGIUM AND FRANCECONSULTANT, TILLEKE & GIBBINS,MYANMAR AND THAILAND

Splitting her time between Belgium and France,
Tine Carmeliet focuses her practice on the life
sciences industry. She began her career as a lawyer
at Allen & Overy Belgium and has been a memberof the Brussels Bar since September 2015. In
addition to also working at Allen & Overy France,
Carmeliet has also been seconded to the legal teamof the European Federation of PharmaceuticalIndustries and Associations.
Recent highlights of her practice include
multi-jurisdictional patent litigations on key
and blockbuster pharmaceuticals in France andBelgium. She has also been involved in the Courtof Justice of the European Union’s preliminary
rulings on new plant breeding techniques andgenetically modified organism legislation, and thelegality of wellbeing cannabis products in France.
Carmeliet is an active member of ChIPs andhelped to organise the launch of the international
non-profit in continental Europe in Paris in May
2019. She’s also taken the initiative internally (ona global level) to establish a working group toadvance women in IP.

Sher Hann Chua handles contentious and noncontentious IP matters for clients across various
industries, including life sciences, technology,
media and entertainment, and sports and gaming.
Now a consultant at Tilleke & Gibbins, Chua
splits her time between the firm’s Thailand andMyanmar offices. After qualifying in August 2014
in Malaysia, Chua began working at Rahmat Lim &Partners before joining Tilleke & Gibbins in 2016.
In November 2019, the International
Trademark Association (INTA) selected Chua
as a recipient of the association’s Tomorrow’s
Leader Award. Chua is a regular contributor to
INTA’s Unreal Campaign, which teaches young
consumers about the dangers of counterfeits, andas part of a CSR initiative by Tilleke & Gibbins, shevolunteers as a speaker and guide at the Museumof Counterfeit Goods in Bangkok.
Chua has advised a French football club on
the expansion of its football academy schooling
services into Thailand and an entertainment
conglomerate on various matters related to its
entry into the Myanmar market.

Rita Anwiri Chindah

Becky Crawford

IP SPECIALIST, PARDOO PRIMELEGAL ADVISORY, NIGERIASENIOR ASSOCIATE, OSBORNE
CLARKE, UK

Before running a private solo practice, Rita
Chindah served as head of the dispute resolution
practice group at Infusion Lawyers, a fully virtual
online law firm. Chindah was called to the
Nigerian Bar in 2016 and previously led Infusion’s
IP and information technology advocacy group.
As an associate at Infusion Lawyers, and also in
her solo practice, Chindah has provided advisory,
advocacy and transactional legal services to abroad spectrum of local and foreign clients inprojects concerning data protection and privacy,
media law, copyright, trademarks and patents.
She is an associate of the Chartered Instituteof Arbitrators (UK) Nigerian Branch, and amember of both the Young International Council
for Commercial Arbitration and the Singapore
International Arbitration Centre. Chindah also
dissects famous IP cases through her #IPSERIES
on Twitter.

Becky Crawford, senior associate at Osborne
Clarke, works on a variety of IP matters, including
trade secrets disputes and protection, trademark
infringement, passing off, copyright, design
infringement and domain name disputes.
She manages trademark portfolios for highprofile and multinational clients, includingEurostar, and performs clearance searches. Before
joining Osborne Clarke as a trainee in 2014,
Crawford worked as a legal intern for a New York
Stock Exchange company in the transport andautomotive sector.
Crawford has gained a reputation for expertisein trade secret protection and breach of confidence
claims. She acted as the lead associate in Kerry
Ingredients v Bakkavor Group, which was widelyreported as clarifying the law in relation to breachof confidence and the application of springboard
injunctions.
In addition, Crawford has created a series ofpractical guides to the changes introduced by the
EU Trade Secrets Directive of 2016.

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HEAD OF CONTENT
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These webinars are available on a first-come, firstserved basis, so if you would like to secure a webinar
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WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

64

Trailblazers

www.worldipreview.com

Charisma Cubillo

Parminder Lally

LAWYER, TERRI JANKE AND
COMPANY, AUSTRALIAASSOCIATE, APPLEYARD LEES, UK

Charisma Cubillo has been employed by Terri
Janke and Company, an indigenous-owned andmanaged law firm in Australia, since 2018.
As a Larrakia (an Aboriginal Australian people
in Darwin) woman, Cubillo has always beeninterested in indigenous-related issues. Her studyof indigenous people in international law as partof her law degree acted as a catalyst for her interestin pursuing a career in IP.
At Terri Janke and Company, Cubillo assists
various indigenous clients with their legal
enquiries. She presented “IP Food for Thought:
Intellectual Property and Protecting Indigenous
Bushfoods” at the Merinj Kaatdijin Aboriginal
Food Knowledge Forum in Albany, Western
Australia, in November 2019 and has conducted
workshops for the law firm.
Cubillo is a member of the New South Wales
Aboriginal Law Council and the Torres Strait
Regional Authority, an Australian government
body established to strengthen the economic,
social and cultural development of the peoples of
the Torres Strait area.

Caitlin Heard
PARTNER, CMS CAMERON MCKENNA
NABARRO OLSWANG, UK
As a partner at CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro
Olswang, Caitlin Heard specialises in technologyrelated disputes. She has acted on a number ofground-breaking cases, including one of theearliest cases in the UK dealing with infringementof standard essential patents and fair, reasonable
and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing.
Heard has represented clients in front of the
EU General Court, the English Court of Appeal,
and the UK Intellectual Property Office. She
has particular expertise in multi-jurisdictional
litigation and also advises clients in the life sciences
sector on product launch strategy, regulatory
exclusivity, and the decisions of regulatory bodies.
On design and brand protection, Heard has
acted for a number of household names, including
technology company Nvidia and telecoms
company ZTE.
Heard is a member of the firm’s women’s
network and is involved in ChIPs and IP Inclusive.
She makes a conscious effort to appoint female
barristers to her cases.

Parminder Lally joined the patent profession
as a trainee in 2011, qualified as a patent
attorney in 2015 and joined the Cambridge, UK,
office of Appleyard Lees in February 2019. She
previously worked as an in-house patent attorneyat Cambridge Mechatronics, a research anddevelopment and IP licensing company, and was
the company’s first in-house IP specialist.
Lally’s clients include startups based in
Cambridge and London, as well as global
companies, and she specialises in computerimplemented inventions (such as software andartificial intelligence) or those inventions which
are more mathematical. She has also representedclients, including Samsung Electronics, before theEuropean Patent Office.
In addition to tutoring trainees from other firms
for the European Qualifying Examinations, Lally is acouncil member of the Chartered Institute of Patent
Attorneys. Lally has been involved with IP Inclusive
since it was formed in 2015, and was co-leader of the
project that led to the creation of Careers in Ideas,
which raises awareness of the IP profession.

Barbara Angela Leitao
ASSOCIATE, DI BLASI & PARENTS
ASOCIADOS, BRAZIL
Barbara Leitao joined Di Blasi’s trademark team in2011 as an intern, before undertaking further study
and working at other law firms. She rejoined theBrazil-based firm in 2017, focusing her practice on
litigation matters involving the fashion, food andbeverage, and pharmaceutical industries, as well ascomplex licensing matters and regulatory affairs.
Leitao is currently on academic leave from theoffice after being awarded a full tuition scholarshipto pursue an LLM degree at The George Washington
University in Washington, DC.
She is an active member of the IP Steering
Committee at the DC Bar (where she co-chairs
the international IP subcommittee) and works
as a policy and advocacy intern at the American
Intellectual Property Law Association.
Her clients include brands such as Coca-Colaand medical equipment company ResMed. Leitao
has written several articles on issues such as theuse of medicinal cannabis, and has participated inevents as a speaker (mostly related to fashion law).

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020
www.worldipreview.com

Trailblazers

65

Maureen Makoko

Nellie Simon

ASSOCIATE, ADAMS & ADAMS,
SOUTH AFRICA

VICE PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN
PATENT OFFICE, NETHERLANDS

Maureen Makoko is an associate at Adams &Adams, and focuses her practice on trademark
prosecution and litigation. She manages clients’portfolios across Africa, while also advising clientson potential opposition and infringement matters.
Makoko drafts various IP-related agreements
such as confidentiality agreements and licensing
agreements. She also advises on copyright andpassing off-related matters.
Makoko has presented at the annual
Womanomics Africa Conference on trademarks,
copyright and trade secrets, advising women on
how to better protect themselves and their ideas,
at the African Women in Dialogue Conferenceon traditional knowledge and South Africa’s
Traditional Knowledge Bill.
Makoko has been nominated to participate
in the International Visitor Leadership Program,which affords professionals who are leaders intheir respective fields the opportunity to travel ona professional exchange programme in the US.

As vice president of the European Patent Office’s(EPO) directorate-general corporate services,
Nellie Simon leads the digital transformation of
the office. She is also responsible for delivering
support services including human resources,
information management, finance, generaladministration, and central procurement.
Prior to joining the EPO in 2019, she was headof cabinet and acting director of the academy
at the European Union Intellectual Property
Office (EUIPO). Between 2012 and 2018 she was
the director of EUIPO’s digital transformation
department.
Under her leadership, the EPO launched a“Women in the Lead” mentoring programme
designed to support talented women indeveloping their careers and personal development
opportunities. Initially set up as a pilot, theprogramme was successful in encouraging women
to take the next step in their careers: 40% of
mentees applied for a new role and 20% moved on
to management roles.
Based on this success, the programme will be
upscaled to give more talented employees theopportunity to reach their full potential.

Mayya Pak
ASSOCIATE, PETOŠEVIĆ, RUSSIA
Mayya Pak has held the position of associate andattorney at law at Petošević Russia since 2017.
Before joining the firm, Pak worked for four years
as legal counsel in the litigation and dispute
resolution department of a finance and real estatecompany in Moscow.
At Petošević, she handles trademark
enforcement, contentious matters, domain namedisputes and online infringements, as well as
copyright matters and anti-competition cases.
She has worked on several large-scalecounterfeit seizures in Russia and the region
for a global manufacturer of confectionery andpet food. In 2018, more than eight tonnes ofinfringing product was seized in Moscow. Pak andher team participated in the criminal proceedings
against the infringer and criminal liability was
subsequently imposed.
In addition to being a member of INTA’s
enforcement committee, Pak is a member of the
IP experts group recently formed by US Homeland
Security Investigations (HSI) and the International
AntiCounterfeiting Coalition.

Xiao Qing Tan
PRINCIPAL, RAHMAT LIM &PARTNERS, MALAYSIA
Xiao Qing Tan serves as principal at Rahmat Lim& Partners in Malaysia. She has been with the firm
since July 2012 and is involved in the managementof a team of more than ten young lawyers and IP
administrators and executives.
After specialising in non-contentious IP
practice for the past seven years, she has expanded
her portfolio to include contentious IP matters.
Tan has also contributed to the implementationand improvement of internal work systems.
Tan has represented a Malaysian oil and gas
government-linked company in the successfulacquisition of the IP rights of nanotechnology
inventions from a financially distressed company
before it liquidated. She has also conductedsuccessful anti-counterfeiting raid actions with
the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer
Affairs, with the most recent raid action yielding
more than 10,000 units of counterfeit products.

WIPR Influential Women in IP 2020

66

Trailblazers

www.worldipreview.com

Luiza Tângari Coelho

Adeena Wells

SENIOR ASSOCIATE, FIALHO SALLESADVOGADOS, BRAZILASSOCIATE, BIRD & BIRD, UK

Luiza Tângari Coelho joined Fialho Salles
Advogados in Brazil in 2012 and focuses herpractice on trademarks, patents, industrial
designs, geographical indications and copyright.
She advises clients on a range of commercial
transactions, including technology transfer,
franchising, licensing, assignments, and researchand development, as well as on litigation. Coelho
handles most of the firm’s matters involving theprotection of Brazilian IP assets abroad and isalso experienced in the resolution of judicial,administrative and arbitration disputes.
She played a key role in a project with the
National Confederation of Industry, the main
representative body of the Brazilian industry,
which involved the drafting and publication of abooklet with an analysis of the IP chapter of the
EU-Mercosur agreement.
Coelho has worked as a guest lecturer in
graduate programmes in IP, international law
and contract law. She is frequently involved in
IP events in Brazil and last year participated asa speaker in the International Bar Association’sannual conference on the panel “Mirror, Mirror on
the wall: a reflective view of IP and other issues in
the cosmetics, perfumes and make-up industries”.

Fabiola Torres
REGIONAL IP DIRECTOR,
LATINALLIANCE, EL SALVADOR
Fabiola Torres joined LatinAlliance as a juniorassociate in the corporate/commercial department
in 2012. After a few years, Torres took over theservices of trademark registration, copyright,
patents and licences and created the IP practicearea in the firm. The team is composed entirelyof women with offices in Guatemala, El Salvador,
Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
As head of the IP department, Torres has
negotiated several deals with clients in the life
sciences sector, including Stein Laboratories,
Medikem, and Grupo Carval.
She is part of the IP committee in the American
Chamber of Commerce, which evaluates anddiscusses new reforms and legislations that affectthe IP practice in the region. Torres is also amember of INTA and ASIPI, and is approved by the
Latin American Corporate Counsel Association.
Between 2017 and 2018, Torres completed amaster’s degree in business administration at the
Adolfo Ibáñez University in Chile.

As an associate within Bird & Bird’s UK brandmanagement team, Adeena Wells advises on thevarious stages within the lifecycle of a brand. Wells
manages the international trademark portfolio ofa global jewellery company, and works in a teammanaging Monster Energy’s trademark work
across Europe.
She also deals with UK and EU opposition
proceedings and runs settlement negotiations
for one of the UK’s largest media and editorialcompanies.
Wells co-chairs the firm’s Embrace network,
which promotes and celebrates racial and cultural
diversity at the firm through events, mentorshipprogrammes and partnerships with organisationsin the local community.
As part of her work at Embrace, Wells haspresented a podcast with the first black female
deputy vice president of the Law Society ofEngland and Wales. She is currently studying fora postgraduate diploma in IP at the University of
Oxford, and is a member of CITMA.

Jessica Zhang
ASSOCIATE CORPORATE COUNSEL,AMAZON WEB SERVICES, CHINA
Jessica Zhang has served as an associate corporate
counsel with Amazon Web Services since
December 2019.
She has successfully represented retail andtechnology companies in trademark litigation
matters against the Chinese IP authority andhas also represented a Chinese conglomerateacquiring a US brand.
After finishing her law degree and being
admitted as a New York attorney, Zhang stayed in
the US and worked in a small fashion company asa legal counsel. She then moved to DLA Piper in
Beijing, where she was an associate for three years.
In her spare time, she does pro bono work. In
the US, she helped immigrants who were victimsof violent crimes to obtain legal status. At DLA
Piper, she worked as a pro bono attorney forvarious United Nations human rights offices onlegal searches and advice focusing on improving
situations for vulnerable groups. lYour IP Business
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BSKB Seminar SeriesYour Destination for Knowledge
Learn more about BSKB’s comprehensive seminar series on intellectual property topics. All seminars
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The bootcamp features an overview of post grant procedures andstrategies for challenging and/or correcting a patent, followed by an indepth look at PTAB trials (including inter partes review and post-grant
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