Fourth Circuit Weighs in on Public Disclosure Bar and Retroactivity
Client Alert | 1 min read | 12.13.13
The Fourth Circuit in U.S. ex rel. Radcliffe v. Purdue Pharma.(Dec. 12, 2013) became the first court of appeals to address whether the FCA's public disclosure bar is still jurisdictional after its 2010 amendment by the Affordable Care Act (a topic about which Crowell & Moring attorneys wrote articles in March and September) and held that it is not, reasoning that the word jurisdiction was excised from the statute and that the government was newly empowered to veto application of the bar. This decision came in the context of a broader analysis in which the court clarified that the date of the allegedly fraudulent conduct, not the date that the complaint was filed, governs potential retroactive effect.
Insights
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25
Design patents offer protection for the ornamental appearance of a product, focusing on aspects like its shape and surface decoration, as opposed to the functional aspects protected by utility patents. The scope of a design patent is defined by the drawings and any descriptive language within the patent itself. Recent decisions by the Federal Circuit emphasize the need for clarity in the prosecution history of a design patent in order to preserve desired scope to preserve intentional narrowing (and to avoid unintentional sacrifice of desired claim scope).
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25
Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.19.25
Client Alert | 4 min read | 11.18.25
DOJ Announces Major Enforcement Actions Targeting North Korean Remote IT Worker Schemes
