I guess I see your interpretation, but that makes it a weird question. "Patentability" in that sense encompasses both legal questions and factual questions. A jury can't really consider the "patentability" of an invention because some of the elements of "patentability" aren't jury questions. They can only consider specific elements like obviousness, novelty, usefulness.

At best the interviewer asked an ambiguous question and the foreman gave a reasonable answer. In any case, this would all be obviated if Groklaw and the media were precise in their use of the terminology. The lack of precision in their discussion is really what makes me question the depth of their understanding of the law.