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Agency Can't Ignore Obvious Costs In Evaluation

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 04.18.05

While agencies are given latitude in establishing evaluation criteria, an agency cannot rationally fail to include costs it knows will be involved in the procurement. The Court of Federal Claims in Arch Chemicals, Inc. v. U.S. (Mar. 18, 2005) instructed that the agency unreasonably excluded from the evaluation plant shutdown costs it was obligated to pay the incumbent if it awarded to another company.

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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....