There are many kinds of engineers.
There were no experienced software or UI professionals on this jury, capable of determining if the patents were valid or infringed. (This jury seems to have stopped even trying to do that, once their foreman decided overnight that he thought they were defendable. His view was colored by his own patent fight.)
It's one thing to determine trade dress infringement. A civil jury can do that with the right legal coaching, as it's mostly about visuals and intent.
It's quite another to determine patent validity and infringement in mere hours, when it takes professional examiners at the ITC weeks or months to do the same for a single item.
Judge Posner said this: "Judges have difficulty understanding modern technology and jurors have even greater difficulty, yet patent plaintiffs tend to request trial by jury because they believe that jurors tend to favor patentees, believing that they must be worthy inventors defending the fruits of their invention against copycats -- even though, unlike the rule in copyright law, a patentee need not, in order to prevail in an infringement suit, show that the defendant knew he was infringing. "
It'll be interesting to see if this case does go to the Supreme Court.
