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Legislation Aims to Improve Program Management

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 12.19.16

On December 14, 2016, President Obama signed the Program Management Improvement Accountability Act. This law (1) creates a formal program manager job series and career path; (2) develops a government-wide, standards-based program management policy; (3) designates a senior executive to be responsible for agency policy and strategy; and (4) exchanges knowledge of successful approaches through an interagency council.

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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....