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Interest Paid Is Recoverable In Damages

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 10.15.07

In Systems Fuels, Inc. v. U.S. (Oct. 11, 2007), a spent nuclear fuels case, DOE argued that interest costs incurred by the contractor in substantial part due to DOE's breach of contract could not be recovered under the "no interest" rule. The court noted the difference between a company paying interest (an expense) or receiving interest (an asset) and held that interest actually paid is an expense that can be recovered as a breach damage to the extent incurred as a cost of borrowing.

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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....