1. Home
  2. |Insights
  3. |DOJ Reports $4.7B in FCA Recoveries in FY16

DOJ Reports $4.7B in FCA Recoveries in FY16

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 12.16.16

On December 14, 2016, DOJ reported that it recovered more than $4.7 billion in settlements and judgments from civil FCA cases in FY16, making it the third highest annual recovery in FCA history. Of the FY16 recoveries, $2.5 billion related to health care fraud, $1.7 billion related to the financial industry, and the remaining $500M related to higher education, procurement, and other federal programs.

Insights

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....