Kalpana Srinivasan

Kalpana Srinivasan is a managing partner at Susman Godfrey LLP and has been with the firm for 18 years. She specializes in intellectual property cases, like patent, copyright and trade secret cases, but also antitrust, privacy and class action litigation.

Srinivasan is slated to serve as lead counsel and first chair for many cutting-edge intellectual property cases this year.

One of those cases is Pascal Metrics Inc. v. Health Catalyst Inc., 2020-1078 (Sup. Ct. Del., filed Dec. 21, 2020). Srinivasan represents Pascal Metrics, which accused Health Catalyst of committing corporate espionage to steal trade secrets related to algorithms that identify adverse health events for hospital patients and using that information to develop competing products. This case is set to be tried in June.

She also represents the California Institute of Technology in its fight against Samsung over alleged infringement of Wi-Fi patents in Samsung devices. Caltech has previously triumphed over Apple Inc. for the same patents, attaining a $1 billion judgment. California Institute of Technology v. Samsung Electronics Co. LTD. et al., 2:21-cv-00446, (E.D. Tex., filed Dec. 3, 2021).

Srinivasan said in an interview she finds the unique and highly fact-intensive inquiry that goes into trade secret cases compelling. She stated she also enjoys figuring out what the key issues are in a case so she can strongly present streamlined arguments to fact-finders. Being able to get into the weeds of discovery is important, she added, but being able to step back and look at the case in a big-picture holistic way is also important.

“One of the things I find really gratifying about trial is that it forces you to crystallize: what is the key issue in the case? What is the dispute really about if you had to break it down in the most simple and straightforward of forms?” Srinivasan said.

—Jonathan Lo