By Sherri Oslick --
Assembled by Chief Judge Paul R. Michel (at right) of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a committee comprising litigators and judges from across the nation has prepared and published model jury instructions for patent infringement cases based on the experience of those both on the bench and in the bar. The model jury instructions have not been endorsed by the CAFC, nor were they intended to be "official" model jury instructions. Rather the committee's focus was "to benefit from the collective experience of both judges and attorneys who [were] interested in creating an easier to understand and streamlined set of model jury instructions."
Committee members include: Kenneth C. Bass III (Senior Counsel with Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox, P.L.L.C., Washington, D.C., now deceased), Donald R. Dunner (Partner with Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP, Washington, D.C.), Pamela Banner Krupka (Krupka Law Group, P.C., Los Angeles, California), Roderick R. McKelvie (Partner with Covington & Burling LLP, Washington, D.C.), Teresa Stanek Rea (Partner with Crowell & Moring, Washington, D.C.), Judge Patti B. Saris (U.S. District Court Judge, District of Massachusetts), Judge T. John Ward (U.S. District Court Judge, Eastern District of Texas), and Judge Ronald M. Whyte (U. S. District Court Judge, Northern District of California). The committee is chaired by Edward R. Reines (Litigation Partner with Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, Redwood Shores, California).
In preparing the model jury instructions, the committee reviewed and drew from the work of others, including that of the committees for the Northern District of California, The Federal Circuit Bar Association, the AIPLA, and the District of Delaware. Public comments from federal judges, inventors, attorneys, law firms, corporations, bar groups, and trade associations were also taken into consideration, including comments from the American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property Law, Federal Circuit Bar Association, and Intellectual Property Owners Association.
The National Patent Jury Instructions may be downloaded here, in either PDF or Microsoft Word format. They will be updated in a timely manner to incorporate new developments in the law.
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