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Declaratory Judgment Actions Examined

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 05.08.06

A declaratory judgment action is sometimes the best way to resolve a contract dispute, but you must know how to use it. In “Declaratory Judgment Actions--An Effective Tool for Serious Situations," in the American Bar Association's Spring 2006 publication of The Procurement Lawyer, (http://www.crowell.com/pdf/Newsroom/Haile-Claybrook_procureSpr06.pdf) Rick Claybrook and Chris Haile of C&M examine the use of these special actions, providing insight into when they are most effective and warning of some common pitfalls to avoid.

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Client Alert | 2 min read | 11.14.25

Defining Claim Terms by Implication: Lexicography Lessons from Aortic Innovations LLC v. Edwards Lifesciences Corporation

Claim construction is a key stage of most patent litigations, where the court must decide the meaning of any disputed terms in the patent claims.  Generally, claim terms are given their plain and ordinary meaning except under two circumstances: (1) when the patentee acts as its own lexicographer and sets out a definition for the term; and (2) when the patentee disavows the full scope of the term either in the specification or during prosecution.  Thorner v. Sony Comput. Ent. Am. LLC, 669 F.3d 1362, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2012).  The Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Aortic Innovations LLC v. Edwards Lifesciences Corp. highlights that patentees can act as their own lexicographers through consistent, interchangeable usage of terms across the specification, effectively defining terms by implication....