Southfield, Mich. – Brooks Kushman shareholder Rachel A. Smith has been appointed as Michigan Intellectual Property Law Association (MIPLA) President for the 2018-2019 term.
As President, Smith will be responsible for acting as the official representative of the association. She will provide leadership and strategic vision to the organization to aid in its growth and importance, offer guidance to the organization’s standing committees and preside over all meetings of the membership, as well as the Board.
As leader in MIPLA, Smith will oversee programs that promote the organization’s mission and core values such as law school outreach programs and liaisons, community outreach, coordinating networking events, organizing CLE credit luncheons and other on-going educational opportunities for members.
Smith is a registered patent attorney and focuses primarily on domestic and foreign patent prosecution, and has a deep understanding of various technologies in the mechanical and electrical arts. In particular, she has extensive experience prosecuting patent applications in consumer electronics, automotive, medical device, and network technologies. Her practice further includes drafting patentability, infringement, validity and freedom to operate opinions.
Smith’s practice also includes consulting clients on open source software license agreements. She works with clients to understand complex software licenses and copyright matters, and has worked with the firm’s open source team to perform software audits on complex systems.
MIPLA is an organization of intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, and law students from across Michigan who are interested in intellectual property issues. Founded in 1915, the association promotes the advancement of industry through intellectual property rights, fosters fellowship and communication within the intellectual property community, and helps enforce and maintain high ethical standards amongst practitioners in the field.
About Brooks Kushman P.C.
Brooks Kushman P.C. is a leading intellectual property (IP) and technology law firm, and represents clients nationally and internationally with respect to protection, enforcement and monetization of IP, including patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. The firm has more than 90 intellectual property professionals specializing in various technical disciplines, and has a reputation for providing leading IP counseling with a focus on the business objectives of their clients.
Brooks Kushman counts a number of Fortune 100 companies across a variety of industries among its clients. The firm is also recognized by leading legal publications and rankings, including Corporate Counsel magazine, U.S. News & World Report, Law360, Intellectual Asset Management, Managing Intellectual Property, and Intellectual Property Today. For more information, please visit www.BrooksKushman.com.
