GAO Sides With COFC In Continued Battle Over Hubzone Set-Aside Priority
Client Alert | 1 min read | 05.21.10
GAO in DGR Assocs., Inc.(May 14, 2010), relied on "unambiguous" statutory language instead of a contrary 2009 opinion letter from DoJ's Office of Legal Counsel to hold that a procuring agency must first consider whether the conditions for a HUBZone set-aside exist before proceeding with an 8(a) set-aside. With this decision, GAO falls into line with (and cites with approval) the recent Court of Federal Claims decision, Mission Critical Solution v. U.S (Mar. 2, 2010), appeal docketed (Fed. Cir. Apr. 2, 2010), to the effect that set-asides to HUBZone contractors are mandatory whenever the criteria in 15 U.S.C. 657a are met.
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Client Alert | 2 min read | 11.14.25
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.
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