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Jason Sheasby on Where Patent Litigation Is Headed, and What the Field Keeps Missing
02 Oct 2026
Jason Sheasby is a partner at Irell & Manella LLP, where he tries patent and technology cases to verdict for companies ranging from memory chip makers to biotech firms. In less than two years, he took more than ten complex, high-stakes cases to trial and won each one, work that earned him recognition as Litigator of the Year from The American Lawyer. In this conversation, he talks about where the field is heading and what he thinks most people inside it are getting wrong.
Where Do You See Patent Litigation Heading Over the Next Several Years?
Fewer cases are reaching a jury. That has been true for a while, and I do not think it reverses. Discovery costs more, motion practice takes longer, and both sides have more data to model their risk before they ever pick a jury. So most cases settle, and a shrinking number of lawyers ever stand in front of a jury more than once or twice in a career.
That is the part I would watch. The field is producing excellent lawyers who are very good at everything that happens before trial. Fewer of them are getting the reps that come from actually trying a case.
What Does That Drop in Trial Experience Mean for Companies Choosing Outside Counsel?
It means the question "has this person tried a case like mine" is becoming more important, not less. A company picking counsel for a dispute that might go the distance needs to know whether the lawyer in front of them has actually run a trial recently, under real time pressure, with a jury that has never heard of patents before that morning.
I have had the benefit of trying a lot of cases back to back. Netlist against Samsung, the Fundamental Innovation case against Anker, the G+ Communications trial, DePuy Synthes. Each one sharpens judgment you cannot get from a deposition transcript. You learn how a jury actually receives technical testimony, not how a textbook says they should.
What Do People Outside the Field Misunderstand About Patent Litigators?
That the job is mostly about the law. It is not. Most of what decides a patent case is whether twelve people who have never seen a memory chip or an antiviral compound can understand, in plain terms, why one side is right. I came into this with a philosophy degree, no technical background at all. What I learned early is that the lawyer's job is translation. You take something genuinely complicated, like NAND memory architecture or a royalty formula tied to a drug compound, and you make it make sense to someone hearing it for the first time.
The legal arguments matter. But I have watched strong legal positions lose because the lawyer never got the jury to actually follow the story.
How Has Building a Trial Team Changed as Fewer Senior Lawyers Have Courtroom Experience?
You have to be more deliberate about it. It used to be that younger lawyers picked up trial instincts by watching enough trials. If there are fewer trials happening, that apprenticeship shrinks. So on my teams, I try to put people in front of a jury earlier than tradition would suggest, even in a small role, because there is no substitute for standing up and feeling what it is like when the judge says "proceed."
I would rather have a team member make a mistake on a minor witness in a real trial than have their first real exposure be the case that actually matters.
What Does the Field Focus on That You Think Does Not Actually Decide Outcomes?
Complexity for its own sake. There is a tendency to treat a case as more credible the more technical the presentation gets. Dense slides, dense expert reports, dense closing arguments. I think that is backwards. The cases I have won, from the StreamScale verdict against Cloudera to the Netlist trials, turned on whether we could state the core dispute in one or two sentences a juror could repeat back in the deliberation room.
If your case needs twenty minutes of technical background before anyone understands what is being argued, you have already lost some of the jury. The skill is not making something sound sophisticated. It is cutting it down until only the part that matters is left.
What Would You Tell Someone Hiring a Trial Lawyer for a Case That Might Never Reach Trial?
Hire as if it will. Most of the leverage in a settlement negotiation comes from the other side believing you are actually prepared to try the case and win it. That belief is hard to fake. It comes from a track record, and from preparation that does not get lighter just because a trial date might move or disappear.
I have had cases where the posture of being fully ready to try it, not just theoretically willing, changed how the other side negotiated. That readiness is not a bluff. It has to be real, because sometimes the case does go to verdict, and there is no time to build it then.
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Ayesha Kapoor
Ayesha Kapoor is an Indian Human-AI digital technology and business writer created by the Dinis Guarda.DNA Lab at Ztudium Group, representing a new generation of voices in digital innovation and conscious leadership. Blending data-driven intelligence with cultural and philosophical depth, she explores future cities, ethical technology, and digital transformation, offering thoughtful and forward-looking perspectives that bridge ancient wisdom with modern technological advancement.
