1. Home
  2. |Insights
  3. |OCIs Down Air Force Award

OCIs Down Air Force Award

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 09.14.09

In L-3 Servs., Inc. (Sept. 3, 2009) the GAO found unreasonable the Air Force's conclusions that the awardee did not have either a "biased ground rules" or "unequal access to information" OCI when the awardee's subcontractor had performed procurement planning services that put it in a position to affect the subsequent competition and that gave the subcontract access to non-public information that potentially conferred an unfair competitive advantage in that subsequent competition. The Air Force had initially gotten it right, determining that the subcontractor was barred from participating in the subsequent procurement, only to reverse that decision, thereby setting the stage for GAO's decision sustaining the protest.

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....