Penelope Catley

Penny Catley has over 30 years’ experience as a commercial intellectual property lawyer, advising on trade marks, copyright, trade secrets and related commercial agreements.

Expertise

Penny is a commercial intellectual property lawyer in Australia and New Zealand. She has practised for more than 30 years and is a registered patent attorney in both countries.

Penny enjoys interacting with her local and international clients and getting to know their business issues. She is passionate about maximising the value of her clients’ intangible assets.

Penny has worked for clients in a number of industries, including dairy, food and beverage, wine, education, fashion, energy and FMCG among others. She currently acts for successful local companies Z Energy, as well as international companies Harley-Davidson and Novartis, and Australian fashion designer Collette Dinnigan.

Experience

Penny is a past President of the New Zealand Institute of Patent Attorneys (NZIPA). Before joining Baldwins (now AJ Park), Penny worked for 11 years (four of those as a partner) at full-service law firm Kensington Swan, where she headed up the intellectual property team. Penny started her career at AJ Park.

Recent accolades

Penny’s recent industry accolades include being:

• ranked as a trade mark star in New Zealand in Managing IP's IP Stars 2021
• named by Managing IP as one of the Top 250 Women in IP 2020
• highlighted in World Trademark Review’s WTR 1000 2021 for prosecution and strategy and acknowledged for her ‘astute commercial insights and wealth of experience to the team’
• selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers^TM in New Zealand 2021 in the field of IP law 
• recognised by her peers as being amongst the world’s best and brightest IP practitioners in the WIPR Leaders 2020 handbook
• named in The Legal 500’s Asia-Pacific 2021 guide and elite ‘leading lawyers’ list
• named a global leader for trade marks by Who’s Who Legal 2020.

Beyond work

Penny loves fashion and design and recently completed a beach house renovation project. She enjoys a “big, rich and buttery” Californian chardonnay and the network of colleagues and friends she has established around the world as a result of practising in this field of the law.