A Sewer By Any Other Name Would Smell As Foul
Client Alert | 1 min read | 03.24.05
Southwest Marine, Inc. (Feb. 23, 2005), concerned costs incurred by a contractor in defending a private action brought under the Clean Water Act in which the government did not intervene and in which a federal court found that the contractor had violated the act, imposed a penalty for that violation, and then remitted the penalty entirely in recognition of costs incurred by the contractor to correct the violation. The ASBCA acknowledged that there was no FAR provision that expressly made the costs of a private action unallowable, but noted that FAR 31.205-47 would make such costs unallowable if the action had been brought by the government and concluded that the costs incurred in this private action were sufficiently similar to costs incurred in an action brought by the government to make the costs of the private action unallowable as well.
Insights
Client Alert | 2 min read | 11.14.25
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.
Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.14.25
Microplastics Update: Regulatory and Litigation Developments in 2025
Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.13.25
