Teaching Expert Witness


Jonathan Bari has been retained as a “teaching expert” by various clients, including the Regents of the University of California, and he has been accepted as an expert in both Federal and State court on various subject matters.

According to Richard Gabriel and The Jury Expert, post-trial interviews and jury research indicate that the three main characteristics cited most frequently by jurors in their positive reviews of expert’s testimony include: 1) relevant experience; 2) the ability to use a recognizable methodology; and most importantly; and 3) the ability to teach that methodology and communicate the resulting conclusions.

To those ends, Mr. Bari has assisted clients in their efforts to educate the finder of fact based on Mr. Bari’s inveterate professional experience in the Internet dating back to 1996, his education, his teaching. Mr. Bari leverages a teaching (not telling) style.

Below please find several examples of cases where Mr. Bari was engaged as a teaching expert by these clients:

Clients: Regents of the University of California and Eolas

Case: Eolas Technologies Incorporated and The Regents of the University of California (Plaintiffs) vs. Adobe Systems Inc., Amazon.com, Inc., Apple Inc., Argosy Publishing, Inc., Blockbuster Inc., CDW Corp., Citigroup Inc., eBay Inc., Frito-Lay, Inc., The Go Daddy Group, Inc., Google Inc., J.C. Penney Company, Inc., JPMorgan, Chase & Co., New Frontier Media, Inc., Office Depot, Inc., Perot Systems Corp., Playboy Enterprises International, Inc., Rent-A-Center, Inc., Staples, Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc., Texas Instruments Inc., Yahoo! Inc., and YouTube, LLC (Defendants)

Subject Matters: E-Commerce, Search and Online Advertising

Mr. Bari prepared an expert report and presentation to educate the jury on the historical context of the e-commerce industry; on the rise in the use of interactive product images, interactive video, and search-suggest functionality in the e-commerce environment; on the role such interactive content plays in the industry; and on background e-commerce marketing and advertising principles such as “conversion rate,” “bounce rate,” “stickiness,” and “friction.”

Mr. Bari based his teaching expert work product on his comprehensive review of respected industry sources viewed through the lens of his substantial experience in the e-commerce field. To that end, Mr. Bari reviewed and analyzed numerous industry reports, business profiles of leading web-based companies and internet retailers, government reports, articles from well-respected news sources, and industry analyst reports.

Additionally, Mr. Bari was engaged to work with the plaintiffs' damages expert to assist the jury in understanding the damages evidence submitted by both parties; and it is based on comprehensive research informed by Mr. Bari’s substantial experience in the e-commerce industry.


Client: Summit 6

Case: Summit 6 LLC (Plaintiff) vs. Research in Motion Corporation, Research in Motion Limited, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Samsung Telecommunications America LLC, Multiply, Inc., Facebook, Inc., and Photobucket Corporation (Defendants)

Subject Matters: Social Media, User Generated Content (i.e., photos and videos) , User Experience, Speed and Compression Technologies

Bari Consulting Group was retained with regard to Summit 6’s patent infringement case involving the company's Intellectual Property which included two U.S. patents that cover technology used to quickly resize, compress and transmit digital photographs and other media.  Specifically, Bari Consulting Group was tasked with providing an independent analysis on the qualitative and quantitative drivers that Summit 6’s Intellectual Property may provide from a macro perspective with regard to potentially increasing ease of use of various Web sites and applications, creating a better user experience of various Web sites and applications, increasing user engagement, reducing latency of various Web sites and applications, reducing need for server reprocessing from various Web sites, reducing storage for various Web sites, and increasing revenue streams including advertising sales of various businesses, for example.

This case was generally about how photos are one of the integral cornerstone elements of Facebook’s success, To that end, the case involved a faster and easier way of uploading digital images to theInternet, and specifically the technological manner that Facebook chose to use over other available options. For the jury to accurately measure the value of that technology, Mr. Bari was engaged as a teaching expert to discusss the importance of speed, user experience, user generated content and the presence of digital images are to Internet companies in general and to Facebook in particular.

Mr. Bari was hired to provide opinions regarding general principles of Internet marketing, product/service development, historical context of Facebook’s use of digital images, and online advertising.  Additionally, Mr. Bari was retained to provide expert testimony with the intent to teach the jury about general principles of Internet marketing, Internet business models, product/service development, and the role digital images play on social networking services such as Facebook. To those ends, Mr. Bari was retained to provide expert teaching testimony with relevant and specialized knowledge, including a basic understanding of important terminology, the historical development and usage of digital images on the Internet, and the role that digital images play in social media, specifically with regard to Facebook’s explosive growth from 2004 to the 2011.  Additionally, Mr. Bari was also retained to opine on the historical context and usage of digital images on the Internet by tracing the exponential growth of their use on social networking web sites.

Mr. Bari’s research and opinions focused on the connections between the overall user experience and an Internet company’s financial bottom line. To that end, Mr. Bari's analysis focused on speed and ease-of-use as being essential elements of the user experience by being able to teach about background principles of Internet marketing, “product and service development,” “latency,” and “friction".

Finally, Mr. Bari was engaged to teach the jury about additional background principles—including “photo sharing,” “social networking,” “stickiness,” “engagement,” “abandonment,” “speed: upload and download,” “latency,” “digital identity,” “Internet business models including online advertising,” and “network effects”—and explain how Facebook’s ability to provide its users with quick and easy ways to upload digital images, and the manner in which it was done, was important to Facebook's growth.