My problem with his interviews is that he comes off very smug, self-assured and condescending (for instance suggesting others read up on a law he himself clearly doesn't understand).
I realize, as you said, he was just the guy that got picked, but he is also the one granting interviews, claiming he has expertise in the area because he is a patent holder, etc... It is a fairly well known that juries can be heavily swayed by one or two confident/aggressive people, which is why each side tries to eliminate such folks early on (to their own benefit of course).
This is just another instance of a pet peeve of mine, the "everyone's an expert" phenomenon where people have some familiarity with an area and then extrapolate that into some kind of claim/belief in their own deep knowledge (see also: Dunning-Kruger, lots of tech bloggers, New Scientist's "Instant Expert" section, etc...)
Edit: rayiner claims below he (the foreman) may be correct in his statement about the patentability question. If so I retract my statement that he "doesn't understand the law himself" and submit perhaps I don't :) His statement on interchangeability and non-answering of the proposed paradox which arises between his belief and the ultimate verdict still stands as fairly stupid though.
>Edit: rayiner claims below he (the foreman) may be correct in his statement about the patentability question.
Hogan says that the jury was instructed not to decide patentability, but the only three occurrences of the word "patentable" (or any other form of that word) in the jury instructions were where it specifically instructed the jury to decide whether specific inventions were unpatentable due to obviousness.
The jury was given specific grounds on which they could find the patent invalid. See instructions 29 through 33 and 48 through 52. Invalidating because of lack of patentable subject matter is not among these.
Yes, probably, but that in and of itself is troubling, as it would seem to indicate that he hasn't given much thought on the subject of patentability for individual inventions, even though that was an entire section of the jury instructions.
I realize, as you said, he was just the guy that got picked, but he is also the one granting interviews, claiming he has expertise in the area because he is a patent holder, etc... It is a fairly well known that juries can be heavily swayed by one or two confident/aggressive people, which is why each side tries to eliminate such folks early on (to their own benefit of course).
This is just another instance of a pet peeve of mine, the "everyone's an expert" phenomenon where people have some familiarity with an area and then extrapolate that into some kind of claim/belief in their own deep knowledge (see also: Dunning-Kruger, lots of tech bloggers, New Scientist's "Instant Expert" section, etc...)
Edit: rayiner claims below he (the foreman) may be correct in his statement about the patentability question. If so I retract my statement that he "doesn't understand the law himself" and submit perhaps I don't :) His statement on interchangeability and non-answering of the proposed paradox which arises between his belief and the ultimate verdict still stands as fairly stupid though.