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Federal Circuit Extends 'Good Faith' Shield of Agencies

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 08.12.13

In Croman Corp. v. U.S. (July  31, 2013), the Federal Circuit upheld the reasonableness of an agency's corrective action after expanding the protestor's argument into a "bad faith" allegation. When the protestor complained that the cancellation of several CLINs was without a rational basis and put forward evidence that indicated the agency's rationale was pretextual, instead of requiring the agency to put forward proof to support its stated rationale, the court relabeled the challenge as a "bad faith" allegation, which it held the protestor had not shown by clear and convincing evidence.


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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....