Audrey is a shareholder in the Firm’s Litigation and Intellectual Property practice groups.
She is a litigator and a registered patent attorney.
Audrey has over 35 years of experience as a business litigator handling general business disputes. Her areas of focus include intellectual property litigation (patent, trademark, trade dress, copyright, and trade secret), unfair competition (Lanham Act, Unfair Competition Law, Unfair Practices Act), and antitrust (monopolization, price discrimination, tying, price-fixing, below-cost pricing, and secret rebates under the Sherman Act, Robinson-Patman Act, and Cartwright Act). She has represented clients in federal and state courts, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.
In addition to litigation, Audrey has obtained US and foreign patents and trademarks, and advises clients on all issues of intellectual property law (ownership, licensing, infringement, invalidity, and patentability).
Audrey’s clients have included companies and individuals in the fields of biotechnology, industrial chemistry, medical devices, health and nutraceutical products, software, agriculture, food processing, farming, education, and insurance.
Before joining Weintraub Tobin, Audrey practiced in Los Angeles, focusing on litigation involving business and entertainment. In a high-profile paternity case in Los Angeles, Audrey obtained the first court order, in any California criminal or civil case, admitting evidence of DNA “fingerprinting.”
Audrey’s undergraduate and graduate degrees focused on cell and developmental biology and included extensive coursework in biochemistry and genetics. During and after graduate school, Audrey worked in the area of recombinant DNA technology.
State Bar of California, Antitrust and Unfair Competition, Intellectual Property Law and Litigation Sections
Member
Sacramento County Bar Association, Intellectual Property Law Section
Member
Meritas, Sacramento
Member
Awards
AV® Preeminent™ Rating, Martindale-Hubbell®
Best Lawyers in America®, 2024 (Litigation – Intellectual Property)
Sacramento Magazine’s Top Lawyers List, 2015-2023 – Intellectual Property, Litigation Intellectual Property
Sacramento Magazine’s Top Lawyers List, 2015 – Antitrust
Sacramento Magazine’s Top Lawyers List, 2017- Litigation-Patents
Sacramento Magazine’s Top Lawyers List, 2019 – Trade Secrets
Sacramento Business Journal’s Best of the Bar, 2014, 2016 & 2018-2019
Northern California Super Lawyer, 2004, 2007-2023
J.D., University of California, Davis, 1986
M.S., Oregon State University, 1982
B.S., summa cum laude, Oregon State University, 1978
Summary of Program Join attorneys from Weintraub Tobin’s Intellectual Property Group (Jo Dale Carothers and Audrey Millemann) for this 1 hour MCLE program. Program Highlights Overview of Cloud Computing and Cloud StorageWho owns the information in the Cloud?How are Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks and Trade Secrets affected by the Cloud?How private…
On September 26, 2023, Weintraub shareholders Brendan Begley and Audrey Millemann scored an appellate victory in a published decision from the California Court of Appeal concerning the tracing of community property and separate property in a family law matter, In Re Marriage of Simonis. Brendan is an Appellate Law Specialist…
Weintraub Tobin is pleased to announce that 25 of its attorneys have been recognized in the 2024 edition of The Best Lawyers in America®, and eight attorneys have been named to the 2024 edition of the Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America. Three attorneys have also named “Lawyer of…
Weintraub Tobin is pleased to announce that 31 of its attorneys have been selected to the 2023 Sacramento Magazine Top Lawyers list. Weintraub’s attorneys are recognized in various categories, including Business/Corporate law, Employment & Labor law, Estate Planning & Probate law, and Real Estate law. The complete roster of Weintraub…
Weintraub Tobin is pleased to announce that 47 of the Firm’s attorneys have been selected to the 2023 Northern California Super Lawyers® and Rising Star lists. These lists, selected annually on a state-by-state basis, recognize outstanding attorneys who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement in…
Weintraub Tobin is pleased to announce that 28 of its attorneys have been selected for inclusion in the Top Lawyers 2022 list from Sacramento Magazine. Ten of the listed Weintraub attorneys are recognized in multiple practice areas. The Top Lawyers list, featured each year by Sacramento Magazine, recognizes prominent attorneys in the…
Weintraub Tobin is pleased to announce that 37 of its attorneys have been recognized on the 2022 Northern California Super Lawyers® and Rising Stars lists. Several Weintraub attorneys also received special recognition on Super Lawyers “Top” lists, including six attorneys named to the Sacramento Top 25 Super Lawyers (Gary L.…
Weintraub Tobin is pleased to announce that 26 of its attorneys have been recognized as 2021 Top Lawyers by Sacramento Magazine, including 8 attorneys recognized in multiple practices. Voting for Top Lawyers was managed by Professional Research Services and was open to all licensed attorneys in Sacramento. Voters were asked…
Weintraub Tobin is pleased to announce that 38 of its attorneys have been included on the 2021 Super Lawyers and Rising Star lists for outstanding attorneys in Northern California. In addition, 4 Weintraub Tobin attorneys received special recognition on Northern California and Sacramento “Top” lists. Weintraub attorneys represent 16 percent…
Sacramento, CA – Weintraub is pleased to announce that 21 Firm attorneys have been recognized as 2020 Top Lawyers by Sacramento Magazine. The full list of 2020 Top Lawyers will be featured in the August, 2020 issue of Sacramento Magazine. Weintraub attorneys honored as 2020 Top Lawyers are: Brendan Begley…
Weintraub Tobin is pleased to announce that 33 Weintraub Tobin attorneys have been included on the 2020 Super Lawyers and Rising Star lists for outstanding attorneys in Northern California. In addition, 5 Weintraub Tobin attorneys received special recognition on Northern California and Sacramento “Top” lists. Weintraub attorneys represent 20 percent of…
SACRAMENTO, California – Weintraub Tobin congratulates its 14 attorneys who have been included in Sacramento Business Journal’s Best of the Bar 2019. Attorneys selected to the 2019 Best of the Bar list include Gary L. Bradus, Kay U. Brooks ,Dale C. Campbell, Christopher Chediak, Janet Z. Chediak, Jim Clarke,Edward J.…
Weintraub Tobin is pleased to announce that more than 30 Weintraub Tobin attorneys have been included on the 2019 Super Lawyers and Rising Star lists for outstanding attorneys Northern California. In addition, 6 Weintraub Tobin attorneys received special recognition on Northern California and Sacramento “Top” lists. Attorneys selected to the…
Weintraub is pleased to announce that 24 of the firm’s attorneys have been recognized as 2019 Top Lawyers by Sacramento Magazine. The full list of 2019 Top Lawyers will be featured in the August, 2019 issue of Sacramento Magazine. Weintraub Tobin attorneys honored as 2019 Top Lawyers are: David Adams |…
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has again relied on the Supreme Court’s Alice case to invalidate patents on the grounds that they are directed to an abstract idea. Realtime Data LLC v. Fortinet Inc. ( Fed. Cir. 8/2/2023) 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 19857. Realtime owned several patents covering systems…
On July 24, 2023, the United States Patent and Trademark Office changed its procedures for the PTO Director’s review of certain decisions by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. The decisions in question are those decisions of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to deny or grant petitions to institute…
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals continues to strike down patents directed to abstract ideas under the Alice test for patent subject matter eligibility. In People.ai, Inc. v. Clari Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2023) U.S. App. LEXIS 8294, the court invalidated seven patents owned by People.ai. A patent protects an invention.…
An inter partes review (IPR) is a procedure in the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) whereby a U.S. patent can be challenged in the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). Although a patent can be challenged in federal district court, an IPR is an expedited and less costly procedure than…
I recently wrote about the patent infringement lawsuit filed by Moderna against Pfizer/BioNTech over the COVID-19 vaccine. In its complaint filed in federal district court in Boston last August, Moderna alleged that Pfizer/BioNTech infringed three of Moderna’s patents in developing the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Moderna seeks damages only for the…
Design patents and utility patents are two different things. Design patents protect ornamental designs, such as the shape of a perfume bottle or the design on flatware. Utility patents protect four categories of functional inventions: machines, articles of manufacture, compositions of matter, and processes (methods). To be patentable, however, both…
A lot of people have gotten patents for things related to Christmas. Here are some of the most interesting ones I’ve found, including “Apparatus to Prevent Pets Climbing a Christmas Tree.”
One of the most amazing accomplishments in the field of biotechnology has been the development and distribution of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID 19). The numbers tell the story.
In the last few years, the U.S. Copyright Office refused to allow a copyright registration for a work of art created by a machine, and a federal district court held that an artificial intelligence system could not be an inventor on a patent. However, before we decide whether an AI…
On Monday this week, the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced that the PTO would be revisiting the test for patent subject matter eligibility. The announcement was made on the blog homepage of PTO Director Kathi Vidal. A patent protects an invention. To be patentable, an invention…
A design patent protects a new, original, ornamental design for an article of manufacture. 35 USC section 171. “Ornamental” means that the design is purely decorative; the patentability is based on its visual aspects. Those aspects are the shape or configuration of an article (like the shape of a bottle…
Not everything is patentable. First, only inventions are patentable. Second, only certain inventions are patentable. Four types of inventions are patentable: articles of manufacture, machines, processes, and compositions of matter. 35 U.S.C. §101. These four types of inventions are referred to as patent-eligible subject matter. Some things, referred to as…
The United States Copyright Office has refused to register a copyright for a work of art created by a machine. The work of art is a two-dimensional picture that is mostly dark and sort of looks like a painting. It is a view looking towards a series of two archways…
