Any attorney who has tried an intellectual property case knows that presenting the evidence in a way that jurors fully comprehend is no simple task.

Adding to the challenge for trial lawyers in state and federal court in Massachusetts is the dearth of opportunity to examine a jury pool and determine which members might be capable of processing complicated concepts and theories.

But lawyers say a recent trial in U.S. District Court in Boston that featured a novel approach to jury selection offered a far different experience for those involved.

The patent infringement suit was brought by Cambridge biotech giant Genzyme Corp. against a small Japanese company and an American affiliate.

Judge Douglas P. Woodlock permitted the attorneys on both sides to draft a supplemental juror questionnaire that narrowed the pool to individuals with some degree of familiarity with patents, chemistry, biology and technology.

Boston lawyer Sarah C. Columbia, who defended Seikagaku Corp. and U.S. distributor Zimmer Holdings, Inc., said the screening process helped her clients, which ultimately prevailed at trial.

“You never know how a jury gets to the result it does,” the McDermott, Will & Emery attorney said. “But I saw a noticeable difference in the attentiveness of the jurors. And for us, we felt like our case was one where we’d be better off the better the jurors understood the technology.”

David A. Barry, who regularly tries complex products liability, professional malpractice and intellectual property cases, was surprised to learn of the pre-screening approach employed by Woodlock.

“I would certainly consider [asking] now that I know about it,” said Barry, who practices at Sugarman, Rogers, Barshak & Cohen in Boston.

At the same time, attorneys acknowledge that the practice could raise concerns over the diversity of the pool and the time the process takes.

Furthermore, practitioners say that a pre-screened pool can take a lawyer only so far. Ensuring that jurors who ultimately are seated truly understand the science or technology involved in a case requires the presentation of strong visual support; experts who speak “plain English”; appropriately timed evidence; and segments at trial that deal with one issue at a time.

‘Keeping things focused’

In April 2011, Genzyme filed suit in federal court seeking to block Seikagaku and Zimmer Holdings from selling its Gel-One product, which treats osteoarthritis of the knee.

According to Genzyme, Gel-One infringed on its patent for its own method of treating osteoarthritis: a single injection of hyaluronic acid. Genzyme’s product, Synvisc-One, had been the only single-injection treatment on the market in the U.S. until Gel-One gained regulatory approval in March 2011.

Prior to jury selection, which began in July, Woodlock asked attorneys on each side to propose a special questionnaire that would ask jurors in detail about their education and knowledge in certain subject areas.

Using the questionnaire results, the two sides collectively eliminated approximately 60 of the 107 people called for jury duty. Those remaining went through the normal jury selection process.

According to Columbia’s co-counsel, Michael Kendall, the process proved to be an exercise in collegiality.

“There was far less fighting [over the questions and the jurors] than you would expect,” he said. “People knew what you can do and can’t do, and the judge was pretty strict about keeping things focused.”

Following an eight-day trial, the jury found that the defendants had not infringed on Genzyme’s patent. It also determined that Genzyme’s alleged invention was, in fact, simply an obvious extension of existing technology created in response to competitive pressures, as opposed to a true innovation worthy of a patent.

Calls and emails to the Boston firm Ropes & Gray, which represented Genzyme, were not returned before deadline.

‘As diverse as you get’

Columbia, who has been trying patent cases for 25 years, said it was the first time she had screened a jury pool in such a way and that it was especially helpful in challenging the patent’s validity.

“One thing you always fight against as a defendant in a patent case is the presumption that the U.S. Patent Office has already decided everything, and you can’t possibly be asked to second-guess the Patent Office,” she said. “I can’t draw the line between [the result we got] and another outcome … but there may be an advantage to having a group of jurors who have a relatively better understanding of what’s going on and who might feel more comfortable with that job.”

Stephen Y. Chow, a patent attorney at Boston’s Burns & Levinson, said he, too, could see the appeal — particularly in a case like one he tried in which no one on the jury had more than a high school education.

“That’s pretty scary,” Chow said. “You think to yourself, ‘How much can I educate them?’ That weighs into a lot of settlements in patent cases.”

Barry said the pre-screening process could be useful in other cases as well, such as for legal malpractice complaints in which the underlying suit turned on complex issues, commercial litigation involving complicated accounting matters; and difficult products liability cases like those dealing with vehicle designs.

“After all, the people who are going to decide whether the design of a car is reasonable or not are not typically automotive engineers, yet they’re asked to understand those issues,” he said.

At the same time, Chow said, he could envision objections based on concerns that the jury pool would not accurately represent the community.

“To look at it from a different view, jurors are jurors,” he said. “We don’t have educational requirements for them.”

While that is a legitimate concern, Kendall said, it was never an issue during the Genzyme trial.

“The judge was very strict with his expectations that [the screening] wouldn’t affect the diversity of the jury,” he said. “In the end, the jury was as diverse as you get in federal District Court. Two of the 11 were racial minorities, and there was diversity in terms of gender, where they lived within the district, and what they do for work.”

Columbia, meanwhile, said some judges may be reluctant to devote the time that pre-screening takes.

“It was fairly resource-intensive, she said. “It took some resources of the court just to negotiate and give out the questionnaire. The whole process was the better part of a day, whereas regular jury selection in federal court in Boston would take a morning at most.”

Columbia said it is also conceivable, in certain cases, that one side would see less tech-savvy jurors as an advantage, particularly when that side is hoping to play on jury sympathy.

“But in this case, the judge made it clear that the point was to try and eliminate people who might have more difficulty understanding the evidence,” she said. “If either side had tried to eliminate all the Ph.D.s, they’d have gotten in trouble with the judge.”

Dan McDonald contributed to this story.