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During Bid Protest Stay Agency Should Have Terminated Award To Large Business Following SBA Size Decision

Client Alert | 1 min read | 12.29.06

Departing from precedent and a FAR provision seemingly on point, the GAO, in ALATEC Inc. (Dec. 4, 2006, http://www.gao.gov/decisions/bidpro/298730.pdf), held that even though the Army's award of a small business set aside contract occurred more than 10 days after a timely small business size protest was referred to the SBA, an award action permitted by FAR 10.302(h)(1), the Army should have terminated that contract following the SBA 's determination that the awardee was in fact a large business. Because performance of the contact had been stayed due to a GAO protest, and because the SBA's Office of Hearings and Appeals sustained the size protest, GAO could not identify any "plausible countervailing circumstances" that weighed in favor of permitting a large business to perform the contract.

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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....