Margret Caruso

With more than two decades of IP litigation experience, Quinn Emanuel partner Margret Caruso, who is also chair of the firm’s trademark and copyright practice group, has successfully represented clients such as Google, Samsung, Boy Scouts of America, HBO and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

“Since my very first year as a lawyer, when I was randomly assigned to work on a trade dress case, I was hooked,” Caruso said. “After that, I knew I wanted to do as many intellectual property cases as possible.”

Caruso’s practice encompasses litigation and appellate work in the areas of trademark, copyright, design patents, false advertising, and right of publicity. She has experience in many sectors, including technology, entertainment, and consumer goods companies.

“One of the things I enjoy about my cases is that they are often ‘creative adjacent.’ Even though I’m never going to be a screenwriter, novelist, video game producer, or develop a search engine, I get to work with people who do those things,” Caruso said.

Recently, she defended Google’s Ads program against the fruit delivery company Edible Arrangements. The matter related to Google’s practice of allowing competitors to bid on trademarks as keywords to trigger ads. Along with asking the court to issue a preliminary injunction to shut down part of Google’s Ads program, Edible sued Google, alleging the practice constituted theft, conversion, and civil RICO. After rounds of motion practice, the case ended up in the Supreme Court of Georgia. After Caruso argued the appeal for Google, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the dismissal she had obtained for Google before the trial court, holding that no claim for trademark theft or conversion could be maintained without showing of confusion.

“It felt wonderful to argue before the Supreme Court of Georgia after months of Zoom hearings,” she said. “It was especially satisfying in that case, where there was not a lot of on-point precedent that supported our position, so we really had to go back to trademark’s foundational principles, relying on some cases that were more than 100 years old.”

—Devon Belcher