Suparna is an accomplished patent litigator and registered patent attorney who focuses her practice on representing clients in high-tech patent disputes before the International Trade Commission (ITC), the federal district courts, and the US Patent and Trademark Office. She leverages her extensive trial experience and background in electrical and computer engineering to handle matters involving wireless communication systems, digital signal processing, graphics processors, remote deposit capture (RDC) technology, payment processing, audio processing, telecommunications, location services, consumer electronics, medical devices, optical and magnetic storage systems, and error correction codes, among other complex technologies.

On the transactional side of her practice, Suparna regularly performs merger and acquisition-focused intellectual property diligence involving patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and copyrights, including the mechanics of domain name, source code, trade secret, and know-how transfer. In this context, she has led open source audits to advise on sale and licensing implications. Clients also turn to Suparna to negotiate and draft patent and software license agreements, SaaS agreements, and royalty agreements. In addition, Suparna has significant experience in patent drafting and prosecution, and excels at helping clients to develop patent strategies that strengthen their portfolios.

As a leader and manager of ITC trial teams, Suparna is involved at all stages in the representation, from devising initial strategy through appeals. She regularly argues at Markman hearings and drafts and argues motions to compel, motions to strike, and motions in limine. She cross-examines witnesses, develops witness statements, and drafts expert reports relating to invalidity, infringement, and the ITC’s domestic industry requirement. Her capabilities also include taking and defending depositions of fact and expert witnesses, overseeing technical aspects of written discovery, and drafting and negotiating source code protective orders.

In her work as a patent litigator, Suparna often draws on her experience as a researcher and engineer in coding and information theory. During her tenure as a mobile wireless research engineer at Texas Instruments’ Digital Signal Processing Solutions R&D Center, Suparna conducted coding research for 3rd and 4th generation wireless standards, was the lead inventor of U.S. Patent No. 7,680,216 entitled “Adaptive Thresholds for High Speed Downlink Shared Control Channel (HS-SCCH) (Part I) Detection,” and designed LDPC codes for use in mobile wireless and ADSL systems. She also worked with the Multimedia Communications System group at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center and in engineering roles at companies in the automotive and banking industries, including Ford Motor Company and Delco Electronics Corporation.

Suparna also maintains an active pro bono practice, which has included representing immigrant and refugee children on behalf of Kids in Need of Defense (KIND). She has also prepared Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), I-360, I-485, and guardianship petitions and argued in support of these petitions in immigration courts.

Prior to joining Mintz, Suparna was of counsel and patent attorney at a full-service law firm based in the southeast and earlier an associate and patent attorney at an Am Law 50 firm. In those roles, her practice encompassed patent litigation at the ITC and in the federal district courts. She also drafted successful arguments in numerous inter partes reviews (IPRs) and ex parte reexaminations. In addition, she conducted intellectual property due diligence on behalf of venture capital firms. Suparna has also been a patent agent at national, international, and Boston-based firms and a technology specialist at an IP-focused law firm, where she gained extensive experience drafting and prosecuting patent applications for electrical and computer technology innovations before the Patent Office, and preparing patentability, infringement, and freedom to operate opinions.

For several years after earning her PhD, Suparna served as a visiting assistant professor in the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department of Northeastern University, where she taught undergraduate and graduate electrical and computer engineering courses.

As a Presidential Fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Suparna’s doctoral work in electrical and computer engineering produced new results in the area of coding for nonbinary runlength-limited channels. She wrote a thesis entitled “New Results on Coding for M-ary Runlength-Limited Channels” and authored several publications in peer-reviewed journals related to her work.