William Atkins Shares Advice on Simplifying Patent Cases for Jurors

A juror once explained to William Atkins, head of Pillsbury’s intellectual property litigation team, that people learn through visual, auditory and tactile cues. Since then, he has made a conscious effort to engage jurors’ senses by illustrating patents through animation, asking questions repeatedly to reinforce a point, and letting jurors hold the plaintiffs’ and defendants’ products to underscore the similarities or differences.

“I think these techniques help embed evidence in the jurors’ minds better and more permanently,” he said. “And if they know the evidence, they are going to be more likely to understand our position and agree with our arguments.”

According to Atkins, there is no substitute for letting jurors physically handle the patented invention and the accused device to help them appreciate the distinctions between the two products.

While defending a client in a $120 million case in the Eastern District of Michigan over patents for heat shields that cover car exhaust pipes, he asked the jurors to hold samples of the patented products, which had a thermal insulation area made up of layers of metal foil separated by air gaps and a heat sink area formed by compressing the edges of the foil layers. He also let them feel the accused products, which also had insulating and heat sink areas, but whose foil layers were separated by woven mesh. The jury in 1996 found that the accused products didn’t infringe the patents, a finding that was upheld by the Federal Circuit in 1998.