1. Home
  2. |Insights
  3. |No SBA Protest Review of Approved 8(a) Mentor-Protégé JVs

No SBA Protest Review of Approved 8(a) Mentor-Protégé JVs

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 02.10.12

In Trident, LLC (Jan. 24, 2012), the SBA’s Office of Hearing and Appeals found that SBA area offices have no jurisdiction to review the substance of 8(a) mentor-protégé agreements or joint venture agreements if they have been approved by the SBA’s Office of Business Development before the “final award” of an 8(a) contract. OHA then reversed the size determination made by the area office because it had “no authority (or reason)” to repeat a review of the joint venture agreement for compliance.

Insights

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)....