Patrick T. Schmidt

Patrick T. Schmidt is a trial attorney at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, focusing on high-stakes patent infringement and trade secret litigation. His practice encompasses a diverse range of technologies, including aerospace, action cameras, Wi-Fi communications, and wearable health-sensing devices. Drawing on his background as an engineer and U.S. Air Force officer, Mr. Schmidt is particularly adept at handling disputes in the aerospace field, involving technologies such as satellite communications, helicopter avionics, rocket propulsion systems, and electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.

Mr. Schmidt represents both plaintiffs and defendants in intellectual property matters. His experience includes successfully representing Qualcomm as a plaintiff in patent-infringement litigation against Apple before the International Trade Commission and the Southern District of California, where he secured a complete jury verdict finding infringement of all three asserted patents and awarding all damages sought. He also obtained a jury verdict of non-infringement defending Google and YouTube in a patent case concerning push messaging technologies. In a significant trade secret misappropriation case, he obtained a preliminary injunction for Waymo against Uber.

Notable cases from his patent litigation practice include his representation of GoPro, Inc. as plaintiff in GoPro, Inc. v. Insta360, an ITC investigation involving image processing and electronic image stabilization technology in action cameras. While an Administrative Law Judge initially found infringement of a design patent and validated some utility patent claims, the full ITC later issued a ruling that largely favored Insta360 on the utility patents, finding them invalid or not infringed, though a violation of GoPro's design patent was upheld for older models. He also represented Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. as a defendant in Xifi Networks R&D, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al., a case centered on patents related to multi-link Wi-Fi operations, a feature of the Wi-Fi 7 standard. In Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. v. OMNI MEDSCI, INC., involving wearable health-sensing technology, Mr. Schmidt represented Samsung as plaintiff in a case that was dismissed without prejudice by Omni MedSci, Inc. after 44 days.

Admitted to the State Bar of California in 2010, Mr. Schmidt earned his J.D. with High Honors from the University of Texas School of Law. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the United States Military Academy and an M.B.A. from Auburn University. Prior to joining Quinn Emanuel, he clerked for the Honorable James B. Loken of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.