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GAO Says Strategic Sourcing Benefits Realized, Wants Expansion

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 11.18.16

Last month, GAO issued a report on strategic sourcing that addresses how successful the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative (FSSI) program has been to date. While the report found that, from FY2011-15, agencies reported spending almost $2 billion through the FSSI and claimed $470 million in savings, the report also found that “agencies’ low use of the FSSIs … diminished the potential savings that could have been achieved” – an underutilization that GAO attributed partially to the Strategic Sourcing Leadership Council agencies directing only “10 percent of their collective spending to the FSSIs[,]” with GAO calling for more aggressive targets to be set.

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Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25

Design Patent Application Drawings & Prosecution History Must Be Clear (Merely Translucent Won’t Suffice!)

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)....