Intellectual property litigation is often so complex that attorneys are understandably forced to spend much of their time before trial focusing solely on the legalistic and highly technical details of the case.  They can lose sight of the fact that the issues will be decided by a judge and jurors who do not have the scientific or technical background to fully understand the case.  In order for jurors to understand complex intellectual property cases, attorneys need to have a meaningful context, or case themes, to explain the technical substance of the case.  Jurors also usually look to the motivations of the companies and individuals involved to make sense of who might have done wrong.

What Jurors Bring to Intellectual Property Litigation
Part of the process of preparing an intellectual property case is discovering the attitudes and beliefs jurors have about patents, trademarks and copyrights, the corporations involved in the dispute and the actions of the parties.  Attorneys for both sides often favor jurors with technical or scientific expertise. However, even the "smartest" jurors have opinions and biases that influence their decisions.

Jurors' attitudes about the U.S. Patent Office can significantly influence their decisions.  Although the conventional wisdom is that jurors will defer to the authority of the Patent Office, our recent survey research of several urban jurisdictions indicates jurors believe that the U.S. Patent Office can often make mistakes.