Taylor English Duma LLP is pleased to enter the Tennessee legal market with the addition of partner Micheline Kelly Johnson and associate Yan “Linda” Yang to the firm’s intellectual property (IP) practice.

“Joining the Tennessee market has been a goal of the firm since we launched our hybrid business model allowing attorneys to work remotely throughout the United States while maintaining our traditional hub in Atlanta,” said Kirk Hancock, CEO of Taylor English. “Micheline’s extensive knowledge, breadth of experience, and reputation both in the emergent legal community in Chattanooga and in the international IP community will benefit our clients as well as our growing team. We are thrilled to bring Micheline and Linda on board.”

Johnson is a registered patent attorney with a background in chemistry and an MBA in finance. As client needs have shaped her practice, she focuses largely on developing, leveraging, and managing IP assets critical to clients’ revenue models including trademarks, copyrights, social media and trade secrets, as well as patents. Before joining Taylor English, she served as chair of Baker Donelson’s trademark and branding group and managed an extensive global portfolio of more than 7,400 trademarks and patents.

Throughout her tenured career, Johnson has represented a variety of clients including over-the-counter pharmaceutical companies, a global automobile rental and tech company, an international TV network, consumer products companies, hospitality interests and web-based service providers. She has prosecuted and litigated both domestic and international patents related to diverse technology including chemicals, manufacturing materials and processes, toys, medical devices and computer-based business methods. Johnson has negotiated and drafted license, supply, and technology agreements; rendered freedom-to-operate opinions, validity/invalidity opinions, patentability opinions and non-infringement opinions; and argued successfully before the Patent Trial Appeal Board, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board and in federal and state courts.

Johnson has consistently been named one of the top 50 female attorneys (2015 – 2018) and top 100 Tennessee attorneys (2016 – 2018) by Mid-South Super Lawyers, which also recognized her abilities in Intellectual Property (2013 – 2018). She has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America for Trademark Law for the last seven years, Copyright Law for the last three years and in both Patent Law and Entertainment Law for the last two years.

Outside of work, Johnson serves her community in Chattanooga on the Mayor’s Council for Women, as a board adjunct to housing philanthropy Family Promise of Greater Chattanooga, and as a corporate advisory board member of the Chattanooga Women’s Leadership Initiative. She is active in the International Trademark Association serving on the Emerging Issues Committee and in the International Federation of Intellectual Property Attorneys, Trademark CET and a frequent speaker and writer on IP issues.

Johnson earned her MBA and law degrees from Vanderbilt University, and her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Spring Hill College.

Yang, a native of China fluent in Mandarin Chinese and in English, is experienced in trademark, copyright, FDA and immigration matters. She has negotiated and managed intellectual property-related matters for U.S. companies that manufacture or sell in China.

Yang qualified as a lawyer in China at the prestigious China University of Political Science and Law. She also studied Common Law and European Law at Oxford University in England and earned her law degree at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. At Vanderbilt, Yang worked with small business owners on trademark registration and licensing issues through the school's Intellectual Property & Arts clinic. As a law student, she also translated for a pharmaceutical summit meeting between Chinese pharmaceutical interests and Nashville businesses.

Yang is active in the International Trademark Association’s Bulletin Committee, the Tennessee-China Network, the American Inns of Court and the Southeast Tennessee Lawyers' Association for Women. She has presented on trademark and social media issues, in both English and Chinese, at meetings in Beijing, Nashville, and Chattanooga.