Sam Stake is a partner in Quinn Emanuel’s San Francisco office, specializing in complex intellectual property and high-tech commercial litigation. His expertise covers patent, trade secret, and copyright disputes across a broad range of industries, including AI, biotech, robotics, blockchain, medtech, microprocessors, cloud computing, UI/UX design, medical devices, mobile networks, and digital security. Sam represents both companies and individuals in federal and state courts nationwide, as well as in international arbitration before the ICC and AAA. He also has significant experience in handling federal appellate cases.
Sam serves as co-chair of Quinn Emanuel’s Artificial Intelligence Practice. He was named one of Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Litigators in America for 2023, 2024, and 2025. In 2024, Lawdragon also included him in its inaugural 100 Leading AI and Legal Tech Advisors ranking.
- Salesforce
- OpenAI
- Commure
- Vizgen
- Voxer
- Samsung
- Ansa
- Varian
- Secured a jury verdict against Facebook in the Western District of Texas awarding $174.5 million and a running royalty for Voxer. The weeklong trial ended in a unanimous verdict that Facebook and Instagram Live used two Voxer patents related to Voxer’s Live Messaging and Store-and-Stream technologies. The jury deliberated for just 2.5 hours, found all six asserted claims across the two patents infringed, affirmed patent validity, and awarded running royalties in addition to the damages award. The two Voxer patents expire in 2028.
- Represented Varian Medical Systems in a global patent litigation dispute against its primary competitor Elekta involving numerous patents on cancer treatment technologies across numerous jurisdictions including the International Trade Commission, District of Delaware, Northern District of California, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Obtained a favorable settlement for Varian, after an ITC victory on behalf of Varian in which Elekta was found to infringe multiple, valid patents owned by Varian.
- Represented Twitter, Salesforce, and Glam Media in a patent litigation brought in the Northern District of California involving software for distributed processing of large data sets. The Court granted our motion for judgment on the pleadings finding the patents-in-suit invalid for failure to claim patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
- Represented Salesforce, Zendesk, Riot Games, and NetSuite in patent infringement actions in the Eastern District of Texas involving application distribution and cloud computing related technologies filed by Uniloc. Obtained settlements on favorable terms after successful motion to dismiss claims as patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
- Represented neurosurgical device manufacturer Mazor Robotics in a three-patent suit filed by Neutar. The case settled favorably.
- Represented Symantec as trial counsel in a patent action filed by Finjan in the District of Delaware involving two patents relating to network security and antivirus software. Finjan was seeking over $1 billion in past damages and running royalties against most of Symantec’s antivirus offerings. Following a three-week jury trial, obtained a complete defense verdict, with a finding of non-infringement and invalidity for all asserted claims. Finjan had previously prevailed on the same patents in the same venue against another defendant.
- Represented Samsung in global litigation against Huawei, including an action pending in the Northern District of California involving twenty-two 3G/UMTS and 4G/LTE SEPs, a wide range of competing FRAND defenses and claims, and an antitrust counterclaim asserted by Samsung based on attempted monopolization. The case resolved favorably after we obtained an anti-suit injunction in the Northern District of California on behalf of Samsung against parallel litigation in China.
- Secured only the second writ of mandamus ever to be issued by the Federal Circuit in the seminal In re Genentech case in relation to a motion to transfer venue from the Eastern District of Texas to the Northern District of California. Later won summary judgment of non-infringement on all claims of two patents asserted by Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland against two highly successful anti-cancer products. The Federal Circuit affirmed.
- Georgetown Law
(J.D., honors, 2008) - Harvard University
(B.A., honors, 2003)
- The State Bar of California
- United States Court of Appeals:
- Ninth Circuit
- Federal Circuit
- United States District Court:
- Northern District of California
- Central District of California
- Western District of Texas
- Recognized by Lawdragon as one of the 500 Leading Litigators in America (2023, 2024,2025)
- Recognized by Lawdragon as one of 100 Leading AI and Legal Tech Advisors (2024)