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Government Liable For Foreign Sub's Patent Infringement

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 01.06.04

In Zoltek Corp. v. U.S. (Dec. 9, 2003), Zoltek sued the Government for alleged infringement of a Zoltec process patent for making carbon sheet fiber by a Japanese subcontractor to Lockheed Martin on the F-22 program. The Court of Federal Claims held that, notwithstanding the restriction in 28 U.S.C. §1498(c) precluding recovery for "any [patent] claim arising in a foreign country," Zoltek could recover because such unauthorized use constituted a taking under the fifth amendment that was actionable under the Tucker Act.

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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)....