Title: Intellectual Property Partner

Company: Kaplan Breyer Schwarz & Ottesen, LLP

Location: Matawan, N.J.

Ms. Mishev earned her LL.B. and LL.M. from the School of Law at Sofia University. She also received her LL.M. in intellectual property from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she was competitively selected as a fellow of  the Squadron Graduate Program in Media and Telecommunications Law, which was directed by Professor Monroe Price. She enjoyed the research and editing tasks she performed as part of the program. But most of all, she truly loved the time working and having fun together with other fellows, such as Olga Statz and Ziva Cohen, with whom she remained great friends.

After graduating from the School of Law, Ms. Mishev decided to gain media and legal experience in synchrony. She worked as a journalist for the Obshtestvo I Pravo (Society and Law) Journal, which is a publication of the Organization of the Bulgarian Jurists. She wrote about important issues of the Bulgarian society and law practice and she worked with some of the most prominent legal professionals in the country. The journalist then served as chief law editor of the Demokrazia Daily National Newspaper. She wrote about the activities of the Department of Justice, Supreme Court, Ministry of Defense, and National Security Council for the first independent daily newspaper in Bulgaria, which was established after the fall of the totalitarian regime. She also supervised five reporters in the legal department.

She has also gained national television exposure when she became a reporter for the Bulgarian ‘Plus-Minus Prime Time Economic Show.’ She reported on-screen on legal issues of the free market economy, World Bank and International Monetary Fund activities. She later served as an executive director for Sofia cable television. She managed a team of fifty full-time employees for the first private network in the country, which began to broadcast in 1995.

Ms. Mishev is currently a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, International Trademark Association, American Intellectual Property Law Association, and the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. She was admitted to the Bar of the State of New York in 2003 and was admitted to the United States District Court for the Southern District and Eastern Districts of New York in September 2005. Milena was also admitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on June 2011 and just recently to the United States Supreme Court.

Ms. Mishev is a partner at McCarthy Fingar LLP, a prominent general practice law firm with 65 years old history, located in White Plains, NY. For more than ten years, she has built a national and international reputation as an attorney who specializes in trademark, unfair competition and copyright law. Prior to joining McCarthy Fingar, she served as Head of the Trademark practice for DeMont & Breyer, LLC (now Kaplan Breyer Schwarz & Ottesen, LLP), a New Jersey intellectual property law firm specialized in patents and trademarks. While there, she handled all non-patent related matters on behalf of the firm’s clients. She represented companies in the aeronautics, marketing, food, financial and banking, high-end fashion, perfumery and cosmetics industry in various aspects of unfair competition, trademark and copyright law. Ms. Mishev has represented clients before the United States Patent and Trademark Office Trial and Appeal Board and has been involved in court litigation before the U.S. District Court, Central District of California. She has provided anti-counterfeiting and parallel import protection solutions for companies in the fashion, perfumery and horticulture industry.

Ms. Mishev began her legal career in the U.S. working as a trademark attorney for Graham, Campaign, P.C., one of the oldest U.S. Intellectual property boutique firms, located in the heart of New York City, which later became Graham, Campaign & Mishev, P.C. There, she provided advice to a wide variety of clients, both domestic and foreign, in different aspects of unfair competition and trademark law. She serviced clients in the pharmaceuticals, fashion, perfumery, cosmetics and wine industries. She represented clients in ex parte appeal proceedings and inter partes opposition and cancellation proceedings before the United States Patent and Trademark Office Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. She provided anti-counterfeiting protection counseling for companies in the perfumery and cosmetics industries and handled recordation of registered trademarks with the United States Customs and Border Protection branch of the United States Department of Homeland Security. She assisted U.S. customs agents with the targeting, interception, detainment, seizure and forfeiture of trademark infringing goods. The attorney was also involved in copyright prosecution and litigation matters.

In five years, Ms. Mishev intends to become more involved with the Women’s Bar, to continue doing volunteer work, and to raise awareness about the negative effects of counterfeiting on the economy by lecturing in high schools throughout the state of New York.