McNees Attorney to present at PMCA’s 72nd Annual Production Conference
April 17, 2018
Press Releases
Harrisburg, Pa. – (March 28, 2018) McNees Wallace & Nurick LLC Attorney Lois B. Duquette will be presenting at the Professional Manufacturing Confectioners Association’s 72nd Annual Production Conference on April 17 at the Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square and Lancaster County Convention Center. She will be speaking on “Why an Attorney Should be Part of Your Innovation Team.” Her presentation will discuss the variety of legal issues which should be considered when launching a new food product.
Lois is a member of the Intellectual Property and Food & Beverage Practice Groups. She counsels clients in the areas of trademark, copyright, trade secrets, licensing, open innovation, advertising, promotions and food regulation. Lois’s eighteen years of in-house experience helps her to provide legal counsel with an understanding of the business challenges likely to be associated with the legal situation.
Lois has experience developing and implementing cost-effective intellectual property strategies that utilize trademarks, copyrights, patents, trade secrets, licensing and litigation to grow and protect brands worldwide. Her experience includes developing and protecting a wide variety of trademarks and trade dresses including both famous marks and new marks, as well as color and product design marks, and surnames and geographic names. In addition, Lois has experience drafting and negotiating license, joint development, open innovation, advertising and promotion agreements, and advising on the intellectual property and food regulatory aspects of contractual relationships. She enjoys helping clients to structure relationships with their business partners which will foster successful long term business partnerships. Lois also advises clients on food regulatory matters such as the risk level associated with making different food claims about a product.
Prior to joining McNees, Lois worked for 18 years as an attorney for The Hershey Company where she held a number of positions of increasing responsibility, with her final role being Associate General Counsel of Global Intellectual Property and Regulatory in which she led a team responsible for intellectual property and food regulatory matters worldwide. In that role, Lois had responsibility for protecting world famous brands such as HERSHEY’S, REESE’S and KISSES including their associated trade dresses and product designs. Under Lois’s leadership, the Hershey Company successfully registered as a US trademark the design of its flagship milk chocolate bar as well as successfully protected the Hershey’s flagship trade dress in US federal court, twice obtaining decisions that the trade dress is famous. While at Hershey, Lois also advised on a wide variety of commercial contract matters. Prior to Hershey, Lois practiced for six years as a litigation associate with an emphasis on intellectual property with a large Boston law firm.
For more information on the PMCA’s 72nd Annual Production Conference, please click here.
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McNees is a full-service law firm based in central Pennsylvania with more than 130 attorneys representing corporations, associations, institutions and individuals. The firm serves clients worldwide from offices in Harrisburg, Lancaster, State College and Scranton, PA; Columbus, OH; Frederick, MD; and Washington, D.C. McNees is also a member of the ALFA International Global Legal Network.
