OMB and DoD Do Sequestration Two-Step
Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 08.13.12
On August 1, 2012, Acting OMB Director Jeffrey Zients and Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter testified before the House Armed Services Committee regarding the potential impacts of sequestration set to begin on January 2, but declined to spell out whether OMB would apply sequestration at the program, project, or activity level – the key to determining whether agencies would have some discretion to pick and choose among contracts. Sec. Carter hinted that DoD would follow that approach, stating that the DoD leadership "will take advantage of any flexibility [they] can find" to reach the target cuts, although any such flexibility is already restricted by the Administration's announcement that payroll accounts for military personnel would be exempt.
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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
Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.13.25
