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C&M Obtains Total Offset of Treble Damages

Client Alert | 1 min read | 02.21.14

In U.S. ex rel. Purcell v. MWI Corp. (D.D.C. Feb. 10, 2014), which C&M defended, the district court zeroed out a $22.5 million treble damages jury award against the defendant, finding that the $108 million in payments to the government by the third-party borrower of the loans at issue were offsetting compensatory payments. The court rejected the government's alternative arguments that no offset be applied or that any offset be limited to the jury's $7.5 million single damages award as without any legal support and contrary to the fact that the government had already been "made completely whole" and "gotten what it paid for" by the payments already received, concluding that only penalties were appropriate.


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Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.26.25

From ‘Second’ to ‘First:’ Federal Circuit Tackles Obvious Claim Errors

Patent claims must be clear and definite, as they set the boundaries of the patentee’s rights. Occasionally, however, claim language contains errors, such as typographical mistakes or incorrect numbering. Courts possess very limited authority to correct such errors. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has emphasized that judicial correction is appropriate only in rare circumstances, where (1) the error is evident from the face of the patent, and (2) the proposed correction is the sole reasonable interpretation in view of the claim language, specification, and prosecution history. See Group One, Ltd. v. Hallmark Cards, Inc., 407 F.3d 1297, 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005) and Novo Indus., L.P. v. Micro Molds Corp., 350 F.3d 1348, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2003)....