The Daily Journal has named Manatt’s Michelle Cooke and Yuri Mikulka, partners in the firm’s intellectual property practice, as two of the top intellectual property attorneys in California for 2016. Each year, the “Top Intellectual Property Attorneys” list features California lawyers who have made a significant impact in the field.
The Daily Journal reports that intellectual property lawyers face many hurdles as they work to protect the branding of companies, the creations of innovators and the works of artists. The lawyers selected for this year’s “Top Intellectual Property Attorneys” list took those challenges head-on and pushed technological progress forward.
The publication highlights in Cooke’s profile that her role has grown significantly for longstanding intellectual property clients like Universal Studios Inc. and Alliance Healthcare Services Inc., as well as for newer clients such as Yoobi LLC, a fast-growing provider of colorful school supplies. Cooke, who is co-chair of Manatt’s intellectual property practice, explained that the highly confidential nature of her work stems from getting into situations before they become public disputes. “It is worldwide,” she said. “There are fights over domain names in trying to get people to take down infringing content. Does your website look suspiciously like ours? Then we need to talk.”
In its profile of Mikulka, the Daily Journal spotlighted her many high-profile successes over the course of the year, including a patent infringement case for Sport Dimension Inc., for which she argued a novel theory of law and secured the disqualification of the opposition’s patent expert. Mikulka was also victorious for Lincoln Provision Inc. in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. The publication also notes that Mikulka, who immigrated from South Korea to California as a child, is one of the few Asian-American women patent trial lawyers who serve as lead trial counsel in patent infringement cases.