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Contractor Logs Victory in Termination Case at Federal Circuit

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 03.02.15

In EM Logging v. Department of Agriculture, 2014-1227 (Feb. 20, 2015), the Federal Circuit reversed the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals, holding that substantial evidence did not support the Board's conclusion that the US Forest Service had properly terminated a timber sale contract for "flagrant disregard" of the terms of the contract. On appeal, the court found that the record supported only four instances of route deviation, load limit violations, or delayed notifications, and held that the contractor's actions did not justify termination because termination for "flagrant disregard" must be "predicated on more than technical breaches of minor contract provisions or isolated breaches of material contract provisions which caused no damage."

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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....