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New Age Finally Dawns!

Client Alert | 1 min read | 10.04.06

The second instalment of UK employment-related legislation for 2006 came into effect on 1 October. You will know most of the key features from previous alerts, but we thought it helpful to have brief summary!

The new issues covered include:

  • Discrimination - The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 outlaw unjustified age discrimination in employment and vocational training.
  • Work and Families - Changes to Maternity Regulations remove the six months' service requirement for additional maternity leave, and increase the notice employees must give an employer of changes to their maternity leave plans. They also introduce 'keeping in touch days'. Statutory maternity and adoption paid leave is extended from six to nine months for employees where the expected week of childbirth is on or after 1 April 2007.
  • Minimum Wage - The national minimum wage is increased to £5.35 for workers aged 22 and over and £4.45 for workers aged 18-21.
  • Consultation - TULR(C)A 1992 is amended to provide that where required, notice of redundancy must be given to the DTI at least 30 days before giving notice to terminate an employee's contract of employment (rather than before the actual dismissal date) to bring the legislation in line with recent case law.

Insights

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....