Expert Witness Blog

Information technology expert witness Mark Lanning testified Monday for Google in the case of Function Media versus Google. Michael Dean and Lucinda Stone, owners of Function Media, claim the Google products infringe their ‘025 and ‘059 patents. The patents involve taking raw data and automatically formatting customized advertisements to be published on Web sites.

During his testimony in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Lanning said he did not believe Google is guilty of infringement for a few reasons:

Google does not permit advertisers to input information to create an electronic advertisement customized to selected “Internet media venue’s presentation rules.” Presentation rules refer to the color, layout and content of a site.

Bear Stearns former lawyer Raymond Aronson is to testify as a securities expert witness against Bear Stearns. The bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods is suing Bear over allegedly overpriced bonds Bear hedge funds sold nearly three years ago. Keefe hired Aronson, who is currently with Sutter Securities Group, Inc., to testify as an expert witness on legal and industry practices related to prime brokerage and clearing transactions in the pending arbitration case. Aronson worked 29 years for Bears Stearns until 2004.

For more, see www.businessinsider.com.

The obvious signs of Neil Beagley’s failing health gave his parents ample warning that the teenager needed immediate medical treatment, a doctor testified Friday. Pediatric urology expert witness Dr. Edward Guillery, who specializes in childhood kidney disease, said that a record of the boy’s food consumption clearly signaled his decline. “The fact that there was (a record) is what really caught my attention,” Guillery said. Food journals “usually reflect a significant concern that something is wrong.”

The boy’s parents, Jeffrey and Marci Beagley, are charged with criminally negligent homicide for failing to provide medical care for Neil, who died in June 2008. The family belong to Followers of Christ, an Oregon City church that generally relies on faith-healing rather than doctors and medicine.

For more, see oregonlive.com.

Providence, RI, Senior U.S. District Judge Ronald R. Lagueux on Wednesday gave his oral judgment in favor of Dunkin’ Donuts defendants and adverse to Dunkin’ Donuts franchisee Irwin Barkan. Dismissing the jury on the seventh day of trial, he also granted Dunkin defendants’ oral motion to preclude the testimony of Barkan’s franchise valuation expert witness, Frank Torchio. Barkan has been fighting in court against the franchisor for five years after losing his six stores and his store development agreements to open new franchises. He claimed that Dunkin’ intentionally blocked his efforts to refinance his stores through CIT, even though Dunkin’ had agreed to the financial restructuring of his company.

Barkan asserts that Dunkin’s interference of the refinancing process forced him into bankruptcy with his stores, and that it was an intentional act by Dunkin’ to eliminate him from the system.The expert witness was to give evidence that Barkan would have made $13 million if he had received the refinancing and continued to open his additional stores. In recent years, Dunkin’ Brands has been accused of hardball tactics in terminating smaller franchisees, under the guise that they have breached their contracts. Franchise operators have alleged that they then sell the stores to large multi-unit operators of Dunkin’s choosing.

For more, see bluemaumau.org.

Wireless communications expert witness and FBI Special Agent William Shute recently worked on the case of Bonnie Sweeten, a Bucks County mother who faked a carjacking-kidnapping in May and two days later was taken into custody at Disney World with her nine-year-old daughter.

Sweeten had told emergency dispatchers that she and her daughter were snatched in the middle of the day Tuesday by two men who rear-ended her SUV in suburban Philadelphia. He said Philadelphia police contacted the expert witness within five minutes after they had received the 911 call from Sweeten reporting she and her daughter had been carjacked. Using his expertise on cell towers, “we knew within an hour that she was lying” because the call bounced off a cell tower some 16 miles away from where she said she was, said Shute.

For more, see phillyburbs.com.

Blue Castle Holdings Inc., owner of the Blue Castle Project, presented testimony by expert witnesses at the hearing conducted by the State Water Engineer on the benefits and minimal impacts to Green River Basin of the use of 53,600 acre feet of water for the proposed nuclear power project in Utah. The hearing is one of the last steps for gaining the needed state approval to divert and use the water for the project.

Water engineering expert witness and former Utah State Water Engineer Jerry Olds provided data and testimony to demonstrate sufficient unappropriated water exists in the Green River to use at the proposed power plant. Olds stated, “This is a very favorable location for the use of this water; it will not impair other users’ water rights.”

For more, see earthtimes.org.

The date of the trial has yet to be determined in the case of Richard Poplawski, 23, accused of fatally shooting three Pittsburg police officers. Allegheny County Judge Jeffrey Manning decided Wednesday that jurors should come from another county, citing “pervasive, prejudicial pretrial publicity” surrounding the case.

Manning said he’ll schedule a trial date at a March 22 pretrial conference and wants Poplawski’s public defender, Lisa Middleman, to decide whether she’ll pursue an insanity defense by that time. Middleman told the judge that forensic psychology expert witnesses need more time to review evidence and that she would “absolutely be unprepared in March to give notice” of an insanity defense. “That’s not enough time for a responsible expert to review all the materials and render an opinion,” she said. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court must select the county from which jurors will be bused to Pittsburgh for the trial.

For more, see ldnews.com.

A public hearing was held last week on Homestake Mining Company’s discharge permit with modification at the Cibola County, NM, Complex. The Homestake reclamation project is a Superfund Site cleanup site which involves a 25-million ton uranium waste pile. Homestake Project Manager Al Cox says he has been waiting for re-approval of the existing permit for several years and is now requesting a third pond, EP3, to speed up the process of reclamation. “We’ve lost time [without the third pond],” said George Hoffman, a hydrology expert witness for HMC. “We’ve been unable to maximize the process being used for cleanup.”

Expert witness Chris Shuey of the Southwest Research Center questioned the success of the current Homestake Mining Company’s reclamation project’s success.

For more, see cibolabeacon.com.

Seven former staffers from the House Democratic caucus have pleaded guilty in Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett’s three-year government corruption investigation that has become known as Bonusgate. Former State Rep. Michael Veon is scheduled to go on trial for similar charges on January 19th. The defendants conspired “to pay bonuses of legislative funds — taxpayer money — to legislative employees for political campaign work,” prosecutor James Reeder told Dauphin County Common Pleas Judge Richard Lewis.

The guilty pleas come from staffers who held critical posts, including Veon’s former chief of staff, Rep. Bill DeWeese’s former chief of staff, and the former director of the Democratic Legislative Research Office. Computer forensics expert witness Gregory Kelley gave crucial testimony regarding e-mail message evidence in the case.

Pittsburgh defense attorney Joel Sansone argued to exclude the messages because they were obtained from state Rep. Bill DeWeese, who they claim was a co-conspirator and had the opportunity to exclude messages that might implicate himself or clear others. He also would have had the opportunity to alter messages.