Dr. Keith Botner welcomes a challenge.
“For survey experts, learning about the intricacies of any given matter can be challenging,” says Dr. Botner, a Vice President at MMR Strategy Group. “But I see it as a welcome challenge, one that I can best address with my expertise in research and surveys. While it’s crucial to understand the legal aspects of matters, that’s only the beginning. I can best help my clients by translating this understanding into surveys that not only measure the legal issue, but also adhere to best practices of survey design.”
Dr. Botner has risen to that challenge over his six years at MMR. He came to the company after a first career as a corporate marketing practitioner, handling brand management and consumer insights for Fortune 100 companies, and a second career as an academic who taught graduate and undergraduate students at the university level while conducting and authoring research in marketing. He found his academic work “rewarding and fulfilling,” but he missed answering meaningful business questions in the real-world marketplace. Or, if you prefer a sports analogy, he says that the academic research setting was “too much practice and not enough game days for me.”
Since starting to take expert witness work in 2021, Dr. Botner has become a key part of Team MMR, offering surveys as evidence in support of clients’ matters before federal courts, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, and the U.S. International Trade Commission. That last venue was the site of a particularly thorny problem that Dr. Botner enjoyed solving: How could he use consumer surveys as evidence in a complex matter involving alleged consumer use of multiple patents, when these consumers may not even know they are using the technology?
In the end, he used his expertise in research, survey design, and consumer behavior. To make its case, the client retained Dr. Botner to measure whether consumers were using at-issue devices in ways that were relevant to the patents under dispute. Dr. Botner designed and conducted surveys in three related cases, using his understanding of the patents to narrow down how consumers were likely to use those patents on certain devices, even if the consumers themselves couldn’t necessarily name the technology in play.
Dr. Botner provided expert reports and live testimony in three different ITC hearings for the patent holder. Dr. Botner is particularly proud that he was able to simplify the issues underlying consumer usage of the highly technical patents in a way that helped to inform the court. “In those matters, I set out to learn about the relevant technologies and learn about how consumers interact with accused products in ways that would be consistent with utilization of that patent, and I was able to come up with a survey… to help inform the court at a high level that yes, people were using these devices in these ways.”
Although Dr. Botner is now established as an expert witness in litigation matters, he feels that his roots in real-world marketing allow him to offer a little extra.
“I do feel like I bring this unique perspective, [having worked] in consumer marketing for brands at various Fortune 100 companies,” he says.
But it all comes together in MMR’s work, which includes marketing research as well as litigation expert witness services and research to support advertising claims. Dr. Botner appreciates that every day is different at MMR, and he takes the same approach to surveys.
“Just like no two days at MMR are alike, no two surveys are alike. Each matter requires careful consideration of how to best measure the at-issue elements. With that comes a great deal of product and category research along with an extensive review of survey literature to ensure a methodologically sound survey that best address issues specific to the matter at hand.”