How We Use Experts to Prove Your Case

You have a patent infringement case. I’m Rich Beem. I’m a patent attorney in Chicago. After the pleadings are filed, the complaints and the answer, and the fact discovery, the depositions of witnesses of the case, the exchange of documents and electronically store information, there’s another phase of the case that’s very important. And that’s the phase that involved expert discovery. In patent cases, experts are very important. The technology often requires – it usually requires – explanation. And sometimes to get that explanation into the record is through an expert witness. The selection of the expert is very important. When I select an expert, I prefer to use word of mouth. I ask people I know. I’m active with the college of engineering, where I went to school, and with other colleges of engineering. I do research on the internet. I ask other people. I ask lawyers. I ask other technical people. Who’s the expert on this particular technology? And that’s how I get to the expert. And I interview those people. Often professors make good experts, because they’re used to explaining things, because they can be objective, and because they have the technical credentials. But, I want to make sure they can explain things in a way that’s understandable to the judge and the jury. We don’t want to present a case to a post-doctorate thesis review board. These are people who have other things to do and they don’t want to know anything more about the technology then they need to know to decide the case. So experts are important. We identify them early on in the case and then as the case advances, we begin to prepare the expert report based on the facts that we’re uncovering. The expert witness typically will sign a confidentiality agreement and be bound by a protective order that they will not disclose the confidential information. And then there’s a time that we agree on early in the case, that is set by the judge, where we have to exchange expert reports. We put a lot of work into those expert reports. We really explain the case in detail; we explain the case for patent infringement or for the denial of infringement. We explain the basis for invalidity of the patent or for countering the invalidity case. All those things come in the expert reports. And then there are expert depositions. We go into quite a bit of detail when we depose a technical expert because we want to explore what the basis is – what the foundation is – for their opinion and whether there are any cracks in that opinion. We want to commit them to their position, so that when we go into trial we know what they’re going to say, and if they deviate from that we will have grounds for impeaching the witness. The expert witness is very important in trial for proving up the infringement or for proving the absence of infringement. Why do you need to know this? You’re the decision maker in a patent infringement case that is very important to your company. You need a blueprint for where the case is going to go. You need to have experts brought into the case and prepared properly – to prepare good reports and do well in depositions. You also need to have your attorneys examine the experts for the other side, so that when we go to trial we know what we’re doing, we can present our case and we can respond to the other side’s case. I’m Rich Beem. I do patent infringement litigation. When you have a patent infringement case, call me. I’m at 312-201-0011. Thank you!