Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan

Firm overview:

IP litigation is Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan’s largest practice area, and more than 80% of the firm’s IP cases involve patents. Coupled with Quinn Emanuel’s well-earned reputation for a robust approach to dispute resolution the firm is well known, and a respected opponent, in patent litigation. Rivals speak of the need for a large team to respond to Quinn’s tactic of “trying to outspin you and outwork you”; a client praises the firm for thinking of “everything and anything that could come up”.

Quinn Emanuel’s cases are heard in venues throughout the US, including patent litigation hotbeds California, Texas, New Jersey, and Delaware. Quinn Emanuel has litigated in many different settings, including jury trials, bench trials, administrative proceedings, and arbitrations. The firm has won numerous important patent cases both before and at trial, including for leading technology companies.

Team overview:

Quinn Emanuel employs more than 250 experienced IP litigators, including 96 patent partners. More than 200 of the firm’s litigators are scientists or engineers, with client-relevant degrees and professional backgrounds, such as physics, chemistry, pharmacology, molecular biology, bioethics, neurobiology and neuroscience.

The team has experience in a wide range of technologies, including computer architecture, enterprise and consumer software, network systems, high-power metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETS) and semiconductor fabrication processes.

Executive chairman and founding partner of Quinn Emanuel John Quinn, in this year’s Hall of Fame, has an almost unrivalled reputation as a litigator. In 2024, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in law for his contributions to the legal profession and global impact on business litigation by the Busan University of Foreign Studies in Korea.

Well established as a go-to patent litigator in Silicon Valley, partner Robert Stone has first-chaired trials for a roster of high-tech and well-known technology clients. His notable representations include acting as lead counsel for Voxer in a patent trial against Meta Platforms that resulted in a jury verdict of $174.5 million, and a final judgment of more than $200 million; the parties later reached a settlement.

Victoria Maroulis is the managing partner of the Silicon Valley and a co-chair of the firm’s National Intellectual Property Litigation Practice and Life Science Practice. A peer describes Maroulis as “very prestigious”. Her practice covers a broad range of IP matters in the fields of telecoms, software, hardware, semiconductors, medical devices, and biotechnology.

Partner Eric Huang, based in New York, is singled out by a peer as being “very smart”. Huang specialises in IP litigation with a focus on patents and crypto-related business disputes. His practice includes patent cases in US federal district courts and before the US International Trade Commission (ITC).

Litigating complex technologies is a particular strength of Brice Lynch, of counsel in the firm’s Silicon Valley office. Notable matters he has been involved in include defending Samsung Electronics in an alleged patent infringement suit; representing IBM in a patent dispute; and representing BlackBerry as a plaintiff in a design patent, utility patent and trade dress infringement case.

A Quinn Emanuel partner since 2012, Michael Powell has considerable experience as lead and co-lead counsel in both state and federal courts, as well as in arbitration proceedings. Powell’s client list includes Google, Kraft Foods, MediaTek and Unilever.

Key matters:

• Regents of the University of California v Broad Institute

Quinn Emanuel represents the Broad Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the President and Fellows of Harvard College in a dispute over who was first to invent a CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing system.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted an interference proceeding, and determined that the Broad Institute was the inventor.

In May 2025, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reopened the case and partially overturned the PTAB’s decision, finding that the board had applied the wrong legal standard when evaluating the evidence of invention conception.

The case was sent back to the PTAB for further review.

The Broad is represented by Raymond Nimrod, and Matthew Robson from Quinn Emanuel, and Hugh Balsam (now retired), and Steven Trybus from Troutman Pepper Locke.

• Novartis Pharma v Incyte

A Quinn Emanuel team joined forces with counsel from Paul Hastings to face off with Kirkland & Ellis, and Greenberg Traurig, in a dispute over a blood cancer treatment.

Quinn Emanuel represented biopharma company Incyte in its dispute with Novartis over a licence agreement for the therapy. The parties settled in May 2025, a day before the trial was due to begin.

The case is Novartis Pharma AG v Incyte Corporation, Case No. 1:20-cv-00400- GHW-GWG (US District Court for the Southern District of New York).

• Ceribell v Natus Medical

A Quinn Emanuel team represents medical device startup Ceribell in litigation before the US ITC and Delaware district court. The lawsuits accuse Natus Medical and its subsidiaries of infringing six patents related to a brain monitoring system.

Both suits target Natus’ BrainWatch system, which Ceribell claims is a copy of its patented EEG monitoring tech.

Clients:

Clients: The Broad Institute, Ceribell, Incyte