Trial Lawyers Beware: The Mock Jury Has Been Patented

Mock Jury Patent

To put everyone on notice: The method of conducting a mock trial has been patented.  The patent, No. 6,607,389, claims priority to a 2001 provisional filing date.  The novel portion of the claim appears to be that both the stricken and not-stricken members of the jury pool hear the case.  Claim 1 reads as follows: 

1. A method of conducting a mock trial exercise . . . comprising:

  • assembling an initial pool of potential mock jurors;
  • questioning members of the initial pool . . .;
  • striking members of the initial pool for cause . . .;
  • permitting the attorney[s]to make a number of peremptory strikes of members of the initial pool . . .;
  • assembling a probable jury comprising members of the initial pool not struck;
  • assembling a stricken jury comprising members of the initial pool struck;
  • presenting [at least a summary of the case] to both the probable jury and the stricken jury.

The patent was awarded to Dr. Louis Genevie, founder of Litigation Strategies, a New York jury research and consulting firm.  Thanks to Dan Ravicher at PubPat for showing me this one.