Ishika Desai

Ishika Desai is a senior associate in Goodwin’s Intellectual Property Litigation practice.

She focuses her practice on complex commercial and intellectual property disputes, with a particular emphasis on trade secret litigation involving technology companies, employee mobility issues, and competitor disputes. She also has experience in trademark, copyright, patent, false advertising, and unfair competition matters. Her experience spans federal and state courts and all phases of litigation, across industries including AI, automotive technology, cybersecurity, social media, software, and energy. Ishika joined Goodwin in 2021.

• Defended Central Coast Agriculture, Inc., in a long-running trademark infringement and unfair competition case, securing a complete victory after a two-week jury trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.
• Defended Rivian in a high-profile trade secret misappropriation action filed by Tesla.
• Represented a cybersecurity and risk management company in trade secret litigation concerning confidential analytics platforms and business intelligence tools.
• Represented a social media company in trade secret and copyright disputes involving digital platform technologies and content-related claims.
• Represented a life sciences and diagnostics company in environmental litigation involving complex regulatory and commercial issues.
• Represented prominent legal scholars in connection with amicus briefing before the Supreme Court of the United States and various U.S. Courts of Appeals.

While attending law school, Ishika served as a judicial extern to the Honorable Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye of the California Supreme Court. She was also the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Editor of the UC Davis Law Review.

• Co-Author, “Navigating the NDCA'S New Whistleblower Protections in the Context of Trade Secret Misappropriation Claims,” California Lawyer Daily Journal, September 6, 2024
• Co-Author, “California Supreme Court Review: July 2023,” Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal, August 3, 2023
• Co-Author, “California Supreme Court Review: December 2022,” Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal, December 30, 2022
• Co-Author, “Treble damages among a handful of recent important decisions,” Los Angeles & San Francisco Daily Journal, September 8, 2022
• Co-Author, “Grouping of Carbonaceous Nanomaterials Based on Association of Patterns of Inflammatory Markers in BAL Fluid with Adverse Outcomes in Lungs,” Nanotoxicology, July 30, 2019