Ms. Nguyen is a partner in the firm’s Silicon Valley office. She is an accomplished trial advocate, who has been featured in the American Lawyer, Bloomberg Law, Women to Watch Media and an award-winning podcast, Hsu Untied. Most recently, she was ranked by Best Lawyers in their 2024 edition for Litigation-Intellectual Property. She has tried numerous cases in both state and federal courts across the country. She co-chaired a patent trial that was named a “Top Plaintiff’s Verdict” by the Daily Journal. She has achieved plaintiffs’ verdicts in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and won defense verdicts in bench and jury trials, as well as arbitrations. In 2019, she won a $50 million jury verdict (and an additional $14.3 million in attorneys’ fees) for Olaplex against L’Oreal alleging infringement of multiple patents, trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract. Besides Olaplex, she has represented other companies in the beauty industry, including Seed Beauty in a dispute against Coty, Inc. and the Kardashians. She has also tried multiple trade secrets cases for Pfizer, including a retrial of a case that reduced a $38 million verdict to $165,000. Besides Fortune 500 companies across diverse industries, she has also represented individual clients, including a venture capitalist in high profile trial for extortion and fraud and a founder of a Chinese e-commerce giant in a civil lawsuit in Minnesota. Her practice also includes conducting internal investigations in connection with sexual harassment allegations, and defending clients in regulatory investigations conducted by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, DOJ and state enforcement authorities, including those alleging theories of kickbacks under the False Claims Act and state Anti-Kickback statutes.
Suong received her J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, and graduated first in her class from Franklin & Marshall College, where she completed her pre-medical studies with a double major in Chemistry and Special Studies in Economics and Business. She is a co-author of a paper involving micellar electrokinetic chromatography published in the Journal of Liquid Chromatography in connection with research she had conducted with Merck scientists.
She is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and admitted to the Bar of both California and New York (where she practiced for over a decade).
- Representing Fortinet against Alorica in California Superior Court in a commercial dispute relating to networking equipment.
- Won dismissal of False Claims lawsuit against Gilead Sciences LLC in New Jersey.
- Won dismissal of a $700 million lawsuit filed against defense and technology companies in the Northern District of California.
- Won a $50 million jury verdict for Olaplex, including an additional $14.3 million in attorneys’ fees, in a trade secret, patent infringement and breach of contract lawsuit brought against L’Oréal USA et al. in the District of Delaware.
- Obtained dismissal of plaintiff’s claim and won a clean sweep after trial of all counterclaims on behalf of a billionaire high technology client, which included a more than $14 million judgment and permanent injunction against plaintiff for extortion, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, invasion of privacy, and civil harassment.
- Won a plaintiff’s judgment of more than $23 million for national medical device company against one of its former directors for breach of fiduciary duty for usurping a corporate opportunity.
- Represented a fintech company in a settlement with the FTC in a complaint filed in the Northern District of California alleging violations of the FTC Act, the Privacy of Consumer Financial Information Rule and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
- Currently representing a database software company in connection with a misappropriation of trade secret case pending in Santa Clara Superior Court.
- Currently representing a biopharmaceutical company in numerous False Claims Act litigation filed in Texas, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
- Represented a beauty company in a trade secrets case filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and settled.
- Successfully represented and currently representing numerous health care and life sciences companies in criminal, civil and regulatory enforcement matters and in related False Claims Act litigation.
- Advised a company doing business in the digital currency and block chain technology space in a trademark infringement action and resulting in a favorable settlement.
- Successfully defended Pfizer in two lengthy trade secret trials lasting over 2 months in Santa Clara County Superior Court; defeated 152 or 159 trade secret claims and reduced damages from a claim for $1 billion in damages, to a jury award of $165,000 in damages. Ms. Nguyen conducted the direct examination of multiple fact and expert witnesses, including a key witness who testified to a $165,000 figure for damages that was accepted by the jury.
- Represented VNUS Medical Technologies, Inc. in numerous patent infringement lawsuits involving a treatment for varicose veins, including a successful jury trial resulting in a verdict of approximately $45 million verdict. The verdict was named a “Top Plaintiffs’ Verdict” of 2010 by the Daily Journal.
- Represented eBay in lawsuit alleging misappropriation of trade secrets by internet classifieds company craigslist.
- Represented Symantec in two patent infringement actions filed by Intellectual Ventures in the District of Delaware involving patents relating to network security and antivirus software and storage software.
- Represented Canon in a patent infringement action filed by Intellectual Ventures in the District of Delaware involving, among other things, patents related to Wi-Fi technology.
- Represented eBay in connection with a misappropriation of trade secret case.
- Represented AngioScore, a wholly owned subsidiary of Spectranetics, in connection with breach of fiduciary duties lawsuit resulting in a $20 million award in favor of AngioScore.
- Represented MediaTek, a Taiwanese corporation, in a patent action filed by Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in the Eastern District of Texas involving a patent relating to Wireless LAN. Also represented MediaTek in a separate lawsuit brought by Lantiq in the Northern District of California involving patents relating to integrated circuit (IC) and semiconductor products, which ultimately settled.
- Represented a former correctional officer in connection with an employment discrimination claim challenging the City and County of San Francisco’s policy of staffing female prison housing units with only female officers.
- Represented plaintiff STMicroelectronics against its competitor, InvenSense, in a patent lawsuit pending in the Northern District of California, involving the assertion of nine patents against InvenSense related to various design and manufacturing technologies for MEMS-based gyroscopes and accelerometers used in smartphones, tablets and other devices. That case has settled.
- Represented defendant Hynix Semiconductor in a patent case brought by plaintiff Intellectual Ventures in the District of Delaware involving seven patents directed to pipelined memory chip design, latch timing circuitry, metal interconnects, multi-level memory cells, and single-chip memory device/ controller. After Intellectual Ventures dismissed one of the patents in suit, the case settled.
- Represented Comcast in a patent infringement lawsuit involving video-on-demand services in the Eastern District of Texas.
- Represented numerous Silicon Valley companies in connection with internal investigations, SEC enforcement actions and NASDAQ de-listing hearings.
- Represented Brown-Forman Corporation in numerous commercial disputes, including a trial in Delaware Chancery Court and an appeal in the Fifth Circuit.
- Represented AstraZeneca in connection with numerous antitrust and Hatch-Waxman actions related to tamoxifen citrate and Prilosec.
- Represented KPMG in securities actions and regulatory investigations.
- Antitrust & Competition
- Blockchain and Digital Asset Practice
- Class Action Litigation
- False Claims Act
- Health Care Litigation
- Investigations, Government Enforcement & White Collar Criminal Defense Practice
- Patent Litigation
- Securities Litigation
- Sexual Harassment & Employment Discrimination
- Trade Secret Litigation
- Harvard Law School
(J.D., cum laude, 1995) - Franklin & Marshall College
(B.A., summa cum laude, valedictorian, Chemistry & Special Studies in Economics and Business)
- The State Bar of California (active)
- The State Bar of New York (inactive)
- Registered to Practice Before the United States Patent and Trademark Office
- Davis Polk & Wardwell
- The Best Lawyers in America, Litigation - Intellectual Property, 2024-2025
- Willig Pentathlon Award in Chemistry
- Michael Albert Lewis Price for Highest Achievement in Physics
- Stanley Craig Award for Highest Qualities of Personality, Character and Involvement
- Jacob Miller Prize for Achievement in Business & Economics.
- https://www.quinnemanuel.com/the-firm/news-events/quinn-emanuel-partner-suong-nguyen-featured-on-an-award-winning-podcast/ Hsu Untied Interview (November 2022).
- Women to Watch Media Interview (August 2021).
- How I Made Partner: ‘My Immigrant Experience. Grit. And Perseverance’, Says Quinn Emanuel’s Suong Nguyen, Law.com (February 2021).
- Suong Nguyen et al., International Intellectual Property Law, 44 Int'l L 245 (2010).
- Separation of Lisinopril and Its RSS Diastereoisomer by Micellar Electrokinetic Chromatography (2006).
- Member, American Bar Association
- Member, Vietnamese American Bar Association of Northern California
- Chair of the Judiciary Committee of the Vietnamese American Bar Association of Northern California
- Member, Harvard Asian American Alumni Alliance