Expert Witness

As a reader of this blog you likely know that Albert Einstein was employed, early in his career, as a patent examiner in the Swiss Patent Office.  But did you also know that he later served as a testifying expert witness in at least two patent litigations? In this month's blog we take a look at this interesting footnote to history.

An overview of the U.S. FDA's 510(k) process for medical device approval and discusses its potential pitfalls with an eye toward collaborations between software experts and lawyers litigating the resulting medical device failures.

It can be difficult to find an expert witness with the perfect experience in the specific technology at issue in your litigation.  But beware not to just retain the first qualified technologist you find, as even a highly knowledgeable expert can come up short if they lack key personality traits.

The U.S. District Court of Delaware's "Default Standard for Access to Source Code" follows many but not all recommended best practices for source code discovery.  This month we consider potential areas for improvement in the default rules of this important venue for patent infringement and software copyright litigation.

The long-running court fight between Google and Oracle over Android's unlicensed use of Java API code is coming to a final battle at the Supreme Court. The importance of the final decision in this case to software developers cannot be understated.  

In the context of a civil or criminal court case, a witness is a person who answers questions under oath during a deposition or a trial.  The statements of each witness are his testimony, which is one type of evidence that the trier of fact (judge or jury) may consider in reaching its ultimate decision about what happened.  Significantly, there are several types of witnesses—including expert witnesses—with the rules regarding testimony depending on the type.  In particular, this article explains why opinions are allowed to be included in expert witness testimony.

Laws and legal systems vary by country, sometimes substantially.  Being geographical and cultural neighbors that also share a basis in British common law, it might seem that courts in the United States and Canada would be among the most similar in the world.  In fact, however, there are many significant distinctions.  In this article we summarize some noteworthy differences.

It is often a challenge for non-lawyers—including expert witnesses new to patent litigation—to distinguish between the phrases "patent infringement" and "patent invalidity."  Adding to the potential for confusion, these two very different legal concerns are often at issue in a single trial and thus to be considered and decided by the very same judge or jury.  This article clarifies the distinction between infringement and invalidity.