Ms. Gabriela Kennedy is a partner of Mayer Brown and head of the Asia IP and TMT group. She is also co-leader of Mayer Brown’s global Intellectual Property practice. She is based in Hong Kong, practising intellectual property, media, information technology and telecommunications law. Gabriela handles the full spectrum of intellectual property work from litigation to licensing, strategic advice and portfolio management. Gabriela is one of the most respected IP lawyers in Asia and is particularly well-known in the market for coming up with the solution for the company name hijacking problem in Hong Kong. She advises a number of well-known brands on pan-Asian branding strategies and handles complex trade mark/passing off litigation for them coupled with domain name work for which she is also well known. She has been involved in high-profile media transactions and litigation, and has advised on complex licensing and franchising deals and disputes involving royalty fees. Gabriela has been involved in lobbying for changes to copyright legislation in Hong Kong and has devised strategies for dealing with online piracy. Gabriela advises extensively on technology and data protection issues in Hong Kong and throughout Asia, particularly in relation to business processing outsourcing, the cross-border transfer of data, data compliance, data breaches and cybersecurity issues. On the information technology side, Gabriela’s particular expertise includes advising on complex IT transactions and projects, IT outsourcing, cloud-computing, mobile payments, smart card projects, the regulation of encryption technology, software licensing, and disputes stemming from failed IT projects. She has been involved with a number of international organisations in discussions involving standard setting for the cross-border transfer of data and the formulation of strategies to deal with cyber-security.
Since the early 2000s, Gabriela has been recognised as a leading individual by all major legal directories in all areas of IP and has received numerous awards, including “Woman Lawyer of Year” at the ALB HK Law Awards, 4-time winner of “Best in TMT“ and “Best in IP Litigation” at the Euromoney Asia Women in Business Law Awards”. She has been recently selected by World IP Review as an “Influential Woman in IP for 2019” and is listed as “Top 250 Women in IP” by Managing IP. She has also been named “One of the top 30 world’s leading practitioners” in her field in Expert Guide’s Best of the Best 2019 (Global).