Our Team

Michelle has been involved in numerous intellectual property transactions, including

• strategic management of trademark portfolios of large international and domestic clients, including working closely with in-house counsel to coordinate a cost-effective prosecution, enforcement and opposition strategy
• providing extensive clearance opinions and conducting trademark prosecution in connection with various industries
• acting as counsel in numerous trademark opposition matters on behalf of clients, including preparing evidence and conducting cross-examinations and oral hearings
• providing strategic enforcement advice on trademark and patent portfolios, including developing cease and desist strategies and negotiating desirable settlements with third parties
• managing international foreign trade-mark portfolios of large domestic companies
• reviewing marketing and advertising materials to advise on compliance with trade-mark laws
• acting for plaintiffs and defendants in various patent, trademark and copyright disputes over a wide range of areas – for example, consumer products; food-related process patents; clothing; medicated animal feeds; colour, shape and size of pharmaceutical tablets; and the estate rights of a famous artist
• providing litigation support for patents in the pharmaceuticals and biologics area
• providing strategic advice to clients pertaining to a wide variety of domain name issues and initiating and responding to domain name dispute proceedings including the ICANN’s Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP), the CIRA Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (CDRP) and the Rapid Evaluation Service (RES)
• working closely with in-house counsel to develop best practices and training materials to assist the business in the intellectual property area

Michelle has lectured on aspects of patent law at the Faculty of Law and Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, as well as at Osgoode Hall Law School, at York University in Toronto (LLM Course). She has also spoken on various aspects of intellectual property law, including trademarks.

Michelle is a member of various organizations, including the International Trademark Association and the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada.