The lucrative economics of expert witnesses
I've done several patent trials as a lay/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).In the first one, I was in court while the plaintiff'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 "benefit of the doubt" on a few details.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?Amazon's lead lawyer started the cross-examination of this expert witness. It was very short.Q: How many hours have you spent working on the presentation you just offered us?
A: Q: How much are you being paid for your testimony here today?
A: About $25,000Q: No further questions, you honor.You could feel the impact in the room.(0) I participated in these trials only when the plaintiffs were patent trolls, not to defend Amazon. I'm on the record as opposing Amazon'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.