Cruz Marcelo & Tenefrancia

Senior Partner | Deputy Managing Partner for Finance

•Intellectual Property •Taxation •Trade

Ms. Villanueva is an experienced and accomplished litigator who has successfully represented in intellectual property, tax and trade cases. Ms. Villanueva heads our firm’s Intellectual Property Department and is the principal litigator of intellectual property litigation and enforcement cases. She has represented a broad range of clients engaged in broadcasting, consumer care, pharmaceuticals, information technology, manufacturing and banking in intellectual property cases. She also handles trademark and patent prosecution on behalf of the firm’s diverse intellectual property clientele. She was the principal litigator of landmark intellectual property cases in the Philippines where the Supreme Court first declared a trademark as internationally well-known and affirmed the jurisdiction of the Intellectual Property Office over administrative cases for violations of intellectual property rights. She also recently won a case before the Supreme Court that affirmed the abandonment of a pharmaceutical patent due to counsel's negligence. Ms. Villanueva is also a lead litigator of the Tax Litigation Group with extensive experience handling cases before the Court of Tax Appeals and appellate courts. Ms. Villanueva is the principal advisor and lead litigator of a major petroleum company on major tax litigation matters.

Ms. Villanueva is a professorial lecturer of Intellectual Property Law at the University of the Philippines College of Law and the De La Salle University Law School. She is also a member of the American Bar Association and the New York Bar Association. She was the Chairman of the Intellectual Property Professors and Researchers Organization of the Philippines (IP-PRO Philippines), the professional association of intellectual property professors and managers in the Philippines, from 2010 to 2015. Ms. Villanueva also serves as the Co-Chairperson of the Advisory Council for Intellectual Property (ACIP), a committee composed of experts tasked to advise the Director General of the Philippine Intellectual Property Office (“IPO”) for the realization of IPO’s mission and vision and the approaches to challenges and issues that may impact the said office.

Ms. Villanueva earned her Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of the Philippines College of Law in 1991, graduating cum laude and salutatorian. She ranked fourth in the 1991 Philippine Bar Examinations. She earned her Master of Laws degree, specializing in intellectual property and international laws, from Yale University in 1995. She was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1999.