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Foreign Governments Join the Commercial Item Party

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 05.20.19

On May 9, 2019, the FAR Council issued a proposed rule, which would amend the “nondevelopmental item” prong of the commercial item definition to include competitive sales to “multiple foreign governments” (in addition to sales to state and local governments, which the definition already includes). Comments on the proposed rule, which implements Section 847 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, are due July 9, 2019.

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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....