Erin Conway of McDonald Hopkins

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Erin Conway is an intellectual property attorney, providing end-to-end legal advice and service to her clients.  Erin works closely with her clients to develop comprehensive and business-focused protection, monetization, enforcement, and dispute resolution strategies, taking into account all areas of intellectual property, licensing, and contracts.

In particular, Erin has significant experience representing clients of all sizes in FDA-regulated industries, including food, beverage, nutritional supplement, cosmetic, drug and medical device companies, and understands the effect FDA and FTC compliance issues often has on IP strategy.  She has successfully defended clients in these industries against claims for patent infringement, and false advertising and unfair competition under the Lanham Act and state laws in both the federal courts and the ITC.

Erin is a skilled intellectual property and commercial litigator, with particular experience defending generic pharmaceutical companies in Hatch­ Waxman/Paragraph IV patent infringement actions. Clients trust Erin to efficiently move a case along because of her significant involvement in all phases of litigation (trial and appellate levels) including fact and expert discovery, motion practice, claim construction, summary judgment briefing, trials, and appellate briefing.  Erin’s litigation experience spans across many technology areas, including pharmaceuticals, computer and software systems, and medical devices.

In addition to her litigation practice, Erin has prepared and prosecuted both U.S. and foreign patents across a wide variety of technical fields, with expertise in the medical device, digital health, and nutritional supplement spaces.  Erin also provides valuable patent and regulatory landscape evaluations and freedom to operate opinions to her clients, and regularly drafts and reviews IP licenses and related contracts.

Before joining McDonald Hopkins, Erin prosecuted and litigated patents and other IP for over nine years at highly respected intellectual property boutique firms in both Chicago and Connecticut. While in law school, Erin was a judicial extern to both Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys of the Northern District of Illinois and the Honorable Richard D. Cudahy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Erin served as an Executive Articles Editor of the Chicago-Kent Law Review.

Erin earned her J.D., with honors, from the Chicago-Kent College of Law and her B.S.E in Biomedical Engineering, with honors, from the University of Michigan.

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Protecting Your IP: Social Media Dos and Don’ts

Social media continues to offer an invaluable platform for natural products brands to engage and expand their customer base. In these times, consumers are using social media more and more—particularly on their mobile devices—to stay informed, explore new products, and shop. This rapt audience allows brands to provide authentic and of-the-moment communications to their customers, … Continue Reading

Data Privacy and E-Commerce: Considerations for the Food and Beverage Industry

The global food and beverage e-commerce market is expected to grow to $22.4 billion in 2020, possibly reaching $36.4 billion in 2023. That’s up from $14.9 billion in 2019.  Food and beverage e-commerce revenue in the United States alone is projected to exceed $15.2 billion this year and $19 billion by 2022. It’s no surprise … Continue Reading

Rebranding or launching a new product in the CPG space? Don’t neglect intellectual property

The coronavirus pandemic has presented many challenges for those in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) space, and beyond. Supply chain disruptions, rapid migration of point-of-sale from brick-and-mortar outlets to online retail, and overall shifts in consumer preference, eating and cooking habits, and personal safety needs has required many CPG companies to reevaluate and reinvent their … Continue Reading

A Recipe for Patent Protection: Are food products patentable?

In the past several years, the food and beverage space has seen an explosion of innovation—alternative meat products, plant-based dairy and protein alternatives, CBD- and collagen-infused everything, and functional foods and beverages and containing everything from pre/pro/post-biotics to nootropic and adaptogenic herbs, just to name a few. And many of these innovations have led to … Continue Reading
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