Sonya is a Senior Associate in the Intellectual Property team in the Commercial Department.  Sonya has been practising in the area of intellectual property for over a decade and her experience covers both contentious and non-contentious aspects of intellectual property law.

Sonya advises on a wide range of intellectual property related issues including the protection, exploitation and enforcement of intellectual property.  Sonya also has experience in all aspects of trade marks including re-branding, registration, portfolio structuring, infringement and brand management.

Sonya provides transactional, commercial and dispute advice relating to copyright, trade marks, advertising, domain names, confidential information, patents and designs. 

Sonya has local and international experience in intellectual property dispute resolution (litigation) including copyright and trade mark infringement, passing off, counterfeit goods and breach of the Fair Trading Act as well as interim injunction applications. 

Sonya's commercial experience includes drafting and negotiating various intellectual property-related contracts including licence agreements, assignments and IP-related aspects of general commercial and research and development agreements.  Her experience also covers drafting franchise agreements and advising on aspects of franchising in New Zealand.

Sonya also advises on the intellectual property aspects and implications for a range of corporate transactions.

• Advising DB Breweries, The Radio Network, Mars New Zealand Limited, Cerebos Gregg's Limited and Virgin Enterprises Limited on all aspects of their trade mark portfolios, brand strategy and brand protection
• Advising RE/MAX on their New Zealand franchise business and drafting full suite of franchise documents for New Zealand franchise business
• Advising ALDI supermarkets on brand protection issues in New Zealand
• Advising Griffins Foods Limited, Virgin Enterprises Limited, The Radio Network, Cerebos Gregg's Limited and DB Breweries on strategic issues surrounding enforcement of trade mark rights including in relation to potential interim injunction and substantive proceedings

• Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand - Member