The instructions themselves look like they'd be tens of pages of text printed out. (And note that the people deciding this are specifically chosen for their lack of background in the technologies involved --- IIRC, two candidate jurors with software experience were excused, for that very reason.)
That's a bit unfair. Oracle objected to two candidate jurors with software experience, yes, but at least not officially "for that very reason".
One candidate was an HP employee and Oracle objected on the ground that Oracle has a separate suit with HP. When asked of opinions about patents, the other candidate said he has his strong opinion about patents. I mean, we all do... But I think objections were justified.
Don't you agree that if you think software patents should be abolished, you should not be a juror in a software patent case?
If 1/12th of the overall population thinks that way, it does not seem unreasonable for a jury of 12 to be a fair cross-section of the population. In fact, the opposite seems unreasonable to me.
I don't think that it's the court's job to ignore laws that are unpopular. In that way, anyone who admits to having a strong opinion, which may preclude them from objectively interpreting and applying the laws that do exist to the case at hand, should not be on the jury. We're not polling the population/jury "should these actions should be illegal?" but instead asking "given the laws today, are these actions illegal?"
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120430075018880
The instructions themselves look like they'd be tens of pages of text printed out. (And note that the people deciding this are specifically chosen for their lack of background in the technologies involved --- IIRC, two candidate jurors with software experience were excused, for that very reason.)