Mila Federis is the co-founder and managing partner of Federis & Associates, a boutique law firm in the Philippines, one of just a handful in the country whose practice is exclusively focused on intellectual property law. The firm was recognised as the top trademark filer for 2009-2018 by the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL). It also consistently ranks among the top patent filers.

Ms Federis leads the firm’s very active litigation team, which represents clients in cases involving difficult issues in trademark infringement and unfair competition, trademark registrability, trade dress rights and problems with parallel importation. Through her skilful and dedicated leadership, the firm has successfully obtained decisions declaring the fame of Scrabble, Bridgestone, Yahoo!, Paul Frank, Philips and Marlboro trademarks. It also scored recent wins for Philips and Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings (APRIL) in the Supreme Court.

Ms Federis works with clients from a wide range of industries, including pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, hotel, leisure, electronics, automotive, telecommunications and IT. Her extensive experience in an IP-focused practice involves litigation of highly contested disputes over a wide range of patent and trademark issues, enabling her clients to assert rights from product shapes and configurations, trade dress and trade secrets. She assists clients in trademark portfolio management; trademark clearance; registrability; ownership; product advertising and labelling; and the filing and prosecution of patent applications.

Ms Federis has been named a leading individual for IP in The Legal 500; a patent star and trademark star in Managing IP; a distinguished practitioner by Asialaw; and one of the Philippines’ top 100 lawyers by the Asia Business Law Journal.