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It’s Back – DCAA’s Non-Defense Audit Authority Revived

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 11.03.16

A recent DCAA policy memorandum lifted the moratorium on DCAA performing non-Defense audits, which (as discussed here) effectively applied only to incurred cost audits. Specifically, because DCAA has purportedly "met the requirement of less than 18 months of incurred cost inventory" outlined in the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act as of October 1, 2016, DCAA "may again provide full audit support for non-Defense agencies" and the Operations Directorate "has coordinated at the Executive level with [its] reimbursable customers to inform them that [its] audit services can resume."

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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....