Jury Instructions

Model and sample jury instructions provide a starting point for developing case-specific jury instructions. Links to several compilations of model jury instructions, including the Northern District’s Model Patent Jury Instructions, are included on this page.

Ninth Circuit Model Civil & Criminal Jury Instructions

• Ninth Circuit Manual of Model Civil Jury Instruction (www3.ce9.uscourts.gov…)
• Ninth Circuit Manual of Model Criminal Jury Instructions (www3.ce9.uscourts.gov…)

Northern District’s Model Patent Jury Instructions

2017 revision (updated October 2024*):

• Northern District of California Model Patent Jury Instructions (.pdf, 398KB)
• Northern District of California Model Patent Jury Instructions (.docx, 75KB)

*NOTE: In October 2024, an erroneous citation was omitted from the instructions.

In October 2019, the instructions were edited to include Instruction 4.2a within B.4.2 (Validity—Adequacy of Patent Specification): Written Description Requirement. This instruction, previously approved by the Working Committee, was inadvertently omitted from the previously posted version. 

In December 2018, the Court approved a change to paragraph 5b of the Sample verdict form (page 60). The question relating to willful infringement was changed to conform to recent case law as follows.

Prior version: Has the Patent Holder proven that it is highly probable that the Alleged Infringer actually knew, or it was so obvious that Alleged Infringer should have known, that its actions constituted infringement of a valid and enforceable patent?

Revised version: Has the Patent Holder proven that it is more likely than not that the Alleged Infringer actually knew, intentionally ignored, or recklessly disregarded that its actions constituted infringement?