How We Make Your Case Easier for the Court to Understand
The Abraham Lincoln School of Patent Litigation: 3 simple things that will make cases more easy to understand.
Hi. I’m Rich Beem. I’m a patent attorney in Chicago and I’d like to talk with you about what I call the Abraham Lincoln School of Patent Litigation. You know patents – by their nature – are technical. They tend to be complicated and it’s all too easy to make a case too complicated for anyone to understand it. So, I recommend that in patent litigation that there are 3 simple things that will make cases more easy to understand and will make it more effective to get the case across to the judge and the jury, and to the appeals court if necessary. One of those things is to use plain English. Patents tend to have a lot of language in them and a lot of big words and the legal words are big, and the technical words are big, and people don’t understand what we’re talking about. The judge does not need to have a post-doctorate education in organic chemistry to understand a particular pharmaceutical. The judge doesn’t need to be a programmer to understand software. The judge doesn’t need to be an engineer to understand mechanical things. And the same thing applies to the jury. So what Abraham Lincoln did was he used plain English to set forth the facts in a case. And he marshaled the facts in a certain order; he made them march together in a row. So just by telling the story the jury and judge understood what the case was about. And it’s possible to do that in patent cases. And I would say this; one common temptation is to try to leave the technology out of the case. Well, that’s short-sighted because patent cases are always about technology. And whether you’re the patent owner or the accused infringer, it’s important to come to grips about the case is about – and the case is about technology. But the technology can be explained in a simple way, in plain English, so that ordinary people, so that judges and jurors can understand what that patent is about and what the similarities are between the patent and the accused product and what the differences are. That’s point #1, is plain English. Point #2 is simple exhibits. If you can show an actual product, instead of talking about a pen show a pen – this is a simple exhibit. It gets the point across about what the patent is about. Many technologies can be shown, they can be illustrated, they can be animated, and it could be, it’s possible to show the judge and jury what the patents about. Thirdly, there’s the need for humor. A sense of humor about the patent case, the lawyer needs to have a sense of humor. There’s, there’s always an opportunity to try and make things interesting. Or another way of putting it, just because it’s a patent case doesn’t mean it has to be dull and technical and boring. It’s possible to bring life into it, to bring interest in it, and a sense of humor helps. So those are the 3 things in the Abraham Lincoln School of Patent Litigation: plain English, simple exhibits, and uncommon humor. Why do I tell you about these things? It’s because you have a choice. If you have a patent infringement case, one of those most important choices you make is your selection of the lawyer to handle the case. I’m Rich Beem. I handle patent infringement litigation every day. When you have a patent infringement case, call me. 312-201-0011. Thank you!
