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Federal Employees as Relators OK'ed

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 08.07.12

In Little v. Shell Exploration & Production Co., the Fifth Circuit joined the Tenth and Eleventh Circuits in holding that federal employees, like private citizens, can bring whistleblower suits under the False Claims Act--even when those employees are auditors whose job is to investigate fraud. The Sixth and Ninth Circuits have also implicitly held that federal employees are not barred from acting as relators, while the First Circuit has held that at least some federal employees may not be qui tam plaintiffs.

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Client Alert | 10 min read | 03.19.26

Emotional Perception Redefines AI Patents: The UK Supreme Court’s Groundbreaking Shift in Computer-Implemented Inventions

[1] In a recent development, the UK Supreme Court ruled that Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are not excluded from patentability due to being a computer program “as such.” In doing so, the Court set out the framework of a new test for the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to use when evaluating the patentability of computer. The ruling breaks down barriers to the patenting of AI algorithms in the UK and paves the way for a wider change in the UK IPO’s approach to assessing excluded subject matter....