Taylor A. Pfingst

Taylor A. Pfingst is an intellectual property litigator, with her notable experience centering on patent litigation. Her practice areas, as evidenced by her lead counsel role in a significant case, appear to focus on software, artificial intelligence (AI), voice recognition, and automotive technology.

Pfingst's tracked appearances indicate a plaintiff-side preference, having served as lead counsel for an operating company in patent enforcement. In the case of Cerence Operating Company v. General Motors LLC, she represented Cerence Operating Company, a spin-off from Nuance Communications specializing in AI-powered virtual assistants for the automotive industry. Cerence has pursued an aggressive intellectual property enforcement strategy against major technology companies to protect its foundational conversational AI technologies.

During her tracked appearance in Cerence Operating Company v. General Motors LLC, Pfingst was affiliated with Paul Hastings. However, publicly available information suggests that a Taylor J. Pfingst, who shares a similar professional background and education, joined Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP in November 2025. The Cerence case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, involved allegations that General Motors' in-vehicle infotainment systems infringed Cerence's patent related to integrated voice recognition and text-based information searching. The litigation also involved parallel proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), where a motion to stay the district court case pending PTAB review was denied.

Pfingst earned her J.D. from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in 2017 and holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California Santa Barbara (2012). She was admitted to the State Bar of California in 2017 and is admitted to practice in the U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Southern, and Central Districts of California.