Michelle Ontiveros Gross advises clients on a range of intellectual property and privacy and cybersecurity matters, including in connection with strategic alliances, joint ventures, M&A and financing transactions, intellectual property strategy and commercialization, development agreements and other commercial arrangements, product development, and privacy and data initiatives.

Michelle helps companies successfully develop and protect their technology assets, drawing on her breadth of experience in the industry. Her practice spans a variety of issues including artificial intelligence and machine learning, intellectual property, and privacy and data security, with a particular focus on complex technology transactions, licensing arrangements, and collaboration agreements, as well as large-scale mergers and acquisitions and capital markets offerings.

Her transactional work includes advising on the technology and data privacy aspects of:

  • Mergers and acquisitions
  • Joint ventures
  • Capital markets transactions and financings
  • Integration of business units and product lines in connection with mergers and acquisitions

Michelle has deep experience advising on intellectual property strategy and commercialization, including:

  • Copyright, patent, and trademark matters
  • Development and distribution agreements
  • Software licensing and services agreements
  • Open-source counseling
  • Patent licensing
  • Joint development of technology

She also regularly advises clients on data privacy and security matters, including:

  • Privacy and data security policies and data processing agreements
  • Cybersecurity and privacy terms in commercial transactions
  • SEC cybersecurity disclosure
  • Privacy and cybersecurity compliance 
  • Privacy and data security issues in connection with product development, including the integration of blockchain and AI technologies into new products
  • Data ownership and data rights
  • Privacy and data security regulations, including:
    • The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
    • The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and other State Privacy Laws
    • NYDFS Cybersecurity Regulation
    • Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (GLBA)
    • Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
    • The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)
    • Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA)

Michelle's experience includes advising:

  • Reddit in its US$748 million initial public offering
  • The underwriters in HashiCorp’s US$1.2 billion initial public offering
  • The underwriters in UserTesting’s US$140 million initial public offering
  • Winc in its US$22 million initial public offering
  • Nestlé in its:
    • US$2.6 billion acquisition of Aimmune Therapeutics*
    • US$4 billion sale of its US ice cream business to Froneri*
  • CDK Global, Inc. in the sale of its international segment to Francisco Partners for US$1.45 billion*
  • CDPQ in its US$1 billion investment in Invenergy Renewables*
  • Pentland Group, in its acquisition of the Speedo North America business from apparel conglomerate PVH Corp.*

*Matter handled prior to joining Latham

Bar Qualification

  • California
  • New York

Education

  • JD, Columbia Law School, 2004
  • BS in Symbolic Systems, Stanford University, 2001