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NAFI Or Not, Contractors Can Sign Away Their Right To Appeal

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 03.16.12

In The Minesen Co. v. McHugh (Mar. 2, 2012), a majority panel of the Federal Circuit held that the contractor had waived its right to appeal by agreeing to the contract’s disputes clause, which stated that ASBCA decisions were final “and are not subject to further appeal.” While this decision involved a contract with a NAFI, the majority decided the issue by assuming the Contract Disputes Act applied, and so its reasoning would seem to apply to any contract with similar language.

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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)....