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 | 2 min read | 11.14.25
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.
Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.14.25
Microplastics Update: Regulatory and Litigation Developments in 2025
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