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OGE Issues Proposed Rule Re Gifts for Executive Branch Employees

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 12.07.15

On November 27, 2015, the Office of Government Ethics issued a proposed rule that would revise the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Executive Branch Employees governing the solicitation and acceptance of gifts from outside sources. In the proposed rule, which has a comment period closing on January 26, 2016, the OGE has identified areas in which the new language is meant to "clarify" the existing rules and "incorporate past interpretive guidance."


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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....