The lucrative economics of expert witnesses
I&#x27;ve done several patent trials as a lay&#x2F;fact witness in cases involving patents related to an employment contract addendum I created when I worked for Amazon. The contract described various early web tech hacks (such as embedding session IDs in the URL) and denied Amazon the chance to patent them (0).<p>In the first one, I was in court while the plaintiff&#x27;s damages expert witness (there to estimate how much this large three-letter tech company had lost due to Amazon infringing their patents) gave a presentation that concluded with some number in the $100M range. He was even gracious even to given Amazon the &quot;benefit of the doubt&quot; on a few details.<p>Having never heard this sort of thing before, I have to admit that found it convincing even though I was about to go on the stand and demonstrate that at least some of the patents in the case were bogus. Oh dear, I thought, how are the Amazon lawyers going to deal with this?<p>Amazon&#x27;s lead lawyer started the cross-examination of this expert witness. It was very short.<p>Q: How many hours have you spent working on the presentation you just offered us?
A: &lt;some number that was less than a week&#x27;s worth of work&gt;<p>Q: How much are you being paid for your testimony here today?
A: About $25,000<p>Q: No further questions, you honor.<p>You could feel the impact in the room.<p>(0) I participated in these trials only when the plaintiffs were patent trolls, not to defend Amazon. I&#x27;m on the record as opposing Amazon&#x27;s first patent, and would likely object to many others if I knew about them. In the 3rd trial I participated in (Amazon was not the defendant in this instance), I agreed to participate only so that I could donate all of my fees to the EFF.