Kalpana Srinivasan

LOS ANGELES - As a former journalist covering communication and internet policy, Kalpana Srinivasan followed a number of legal challenges to laws resulting from the 1996 Telecom Act. As she dug deeper into the topic, she wanted to become more involved in how these issues were evolving under the law. That's what led her to law school, she wrote in a recent email.

Srinivasan now serves as managing partner of Susman Godfrey and handles cutting-edge litigation on a range of hot-button legal issues at the intersection of intellectual property, privacy and unfair competition.

She said the firm and her practice are on a major upswing following the pandemic and court closures.

"I am very proud of how we have restarted our trial engine with full steam ahead," she wrote. "We had a large number of cases tried last year and a record number to be tried in the next six months. That is true not just for the firm as whole, but for me personally, too."

She currently represents California Institute of Technology in pursuing patent infringement claims involving its Wi-Fi patents against Samsung's mobile devices. California Institute of Technology v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., 2:21-cv-00446 (E.D. Tex., filed Dec. 3, 2021).

The suit alleges that Samsung's Galaxy phones, tablets and watches use Wi-Fi chips that infringe on five of Caltech's data-transmission patents.

In a similar previous case, Caltech successfully asserted the patents against Apple and was awarded more than $1.1 billion in damages. Caltech v. Broadcom Ltd., et al., 16-cv-3714, (C.D. Cal., filed May 26, 2016). The infringement and validity positions asserted by Caltech were largely affirmed on appeal.

Srinivasan also recently represented Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram parent company Meta in its lawsuit against Social Data Trading Ltd. for illicitly scraping data from its platforms and selling it. Meta Platforms Inc. v. Social Data Trading Ltd., 3:21-cv-09807 (N.D. Cal., filed Dec. 20, 2021).

The lawsuit alleges that the Hong Kong social media data company used bots to illicitly scrape account profiles from various websites, including those from more than 90 million Instagram users, before selling that data.

The district court handed Meta the victory after the Hong Kong company failed to fight the case. The court also ordered a number of injunctions, including enjoining Social Data Trading from accessing or attempting to access Meta's platforms.

Srinivasan filed a similar complaint in July 2022 against Octopus Data, a U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese multinational tech firm that offers data scraping-for-hire services to individuals and companies.

In addition to her practice and executive role in the firm, Srinivasan is a strong advocate of diverse and female lawyers in the industry. She has held leadership roles with the South Asian Bar Association and other organizations involving diverse and female lawyers, and has received awards and recognition for her efforts in this area.

"Now, the work I do is more focused on mentoring young lawyers who are interested in civil litigation, speaking broadly to lawyers who may be first generation lawyers, and helping to share ideas around advancement of diverse and female lawyers in the profession," she wrote.