2020 speakers

Kirupa Pushparaj is the director of intellectual property at Square, Inc, where he leads a team that is responsible for all aspects of Square’s intellectual property globally. He protects Square’s innovation and rights by managing its patent, copyright, and trademark portfolios and is responsible for all of Square’s IP litigation, covering patents, domains, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. Additionally, Kirupa leads Square’s legal operations team that is responsible for championing innovation, efficiency, and adoption of emerging technologies across the legal team.   

Before Square, Kirupa was IP counsel for Lab126 – the digital technology arm of Amazon.com – and was at Perkins Coie LLP before that, where he practiced patent prosecution and IP litigation. Prior to practicing law, Kirupa was a practicing engineer, first as a software engineer at Siemens Telecommunications Limited, and then as a hardware design engineer at Intel Corp., where he worked on semiconductor circuit design and process technology.

Kirupa enjoys teaching and has been an adjunct professor for over ten years at various California universities, including Stanford University, the University of the Pacific, and the University of California, Davis. He has been recognized as a Northern California Rising Star by Super Lawyers, as Corporate IP Counsel of the Year by the San Francisco Business Times, as Corporate IP Star by Managing IP, as Best Under 40 Lawyers by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, and has been included in the IAM 300 list of World’s Leading IP Strategists. He has also received multiple Wiley W Manuel awards for his continued pro bono services. He serves on the boards of the Silicon Valley IP Law Association and the Asian Pacific American Bar Association and is an advisory board member to a couple of tech companies in the Silicon Valley.