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You are right about the danger of non-neutral experts, but there still is an essential difference between a group of experts and a jury.

The experts may be biased, but when they open the mouth and try to argue their position their bias becomes obvious for the other experts and it can be contradicted with logical arguments.

Unless all the experts work for an interested party, it would be very difficult to impose an incorrect verdict, because it is impossible to argue in its favor without the mistakes in the argument being immediately exposed by an interlocutor.

On the other hand, with a standard jury most people will be unable to see what is wrong in the arguments presented to them and they will not be able to distinguish truth from lies in such technical subjects.

The US elections and the elections in many other countries are an eloquent proof of the capacity of average people for distinguishing truth from lies concerning much simpler facts than the details of video compression patents. Expecting a jury to choose the right verdict in such a trial seems too optimistic.

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