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FCA Litigation Forecast: Bad News, Good News

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 03.24.17

The FCA remains the federal government’s number one recovery tool, but how will that be impacted by recent developments in the case law and regulations? In a recent Westlaw Journal piece, C&M’s Brian Tully McLaughlin previews the impact of the Supreme Court’s landmark Escobar decision for defendants in all manner of FCA suits as well as the significant increases in the Act’s statutory penalties.

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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....