Arlene D. Hanks

Arlene counsels and guides clients through their development of practical brand strategies to maximize brand investment to meet their business and commercial goals, whether of a local, national, regional, or international scope.  This includes protecting, policing, and enforcing intellectual property rights domestically and globally, and related marketing, private label branding, licensing, and transactional matters. She assists clients with intellectual property disputes and with IP counseling and due diligence in connection with mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures.  She works with an extensive network of respected firms internationally and assists those firms in protecting and enforcing their clients’ intellectual property rights in the United States.

She serves as external trademark counsel for several multinational companies and their subsidiaries across a wide spectrum of industries, providing guidance and assistance with both day-to-day issues and enterprise-wide concerns and strategies.

Industries

• Hardware, security, and access control
• Pharmaceutical, biotechnical, medical, and healthcare
• Print, digital, and broadcast media and entertainment
• Building and construction products/services
• HVAC
• Paper, packaging, and personal care products/services
• Electrical, industrial, and safety products/services
• Computer software, hardware and related products and services
• Clothing and apparel
• Banking and finance
• Food and consumer goods

Notable

• North Carolina Super Lawyers, Intellectual Property, 2025
• Best Lawyers in America, Copyright Law "Lawyer of the Year," 2023 
• Raleigh Trademark Law "Lawyer of the Year," Best Lawyers in America, 2013
• Best Lawyers in America, Trademark Law, 2012-2025; Copyright Law, 2023-2025
• Chambers USA - North Carolina, Intellectual Property, 2016-2024
• Managing Intellectual Property's, IP Stars – Top 250 Women in IP, 2013, Global IP Star, 2018, IP Stars, 2015-2024
• Business North Carolina's Legal Elite list, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2014-2016, 2021-2022, 2024
• World Trademark Review 1000 - The World's Leading Trademark Professionals, 2013-2016, 2019-2021, 2023-2024
• Business Leader Media, Mover & Shaker in North Carolina and Women Extraordinaire winner, 2010
• BTI Consulting Group as one of 78 United States “BTI Client Service All-Star” attorneys, for delivering superior client service, from a survey of some 200 general counsels of Fortune 1000 Companies, 2001
• C.L.E. faculty member, conducting seminars on trademarks and intellectual property.

News

Affiliations

• American Bar Association
• North Carolina Bar Association: Intellectual Property Section
• Mecklenburg County Bar Association
• International Trademark Association (INTA)
• American Intellectual Property Law Association