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Obama Moves Out On The Union Front

Client Alert | 1 min read | 02.03.09

On January 30, 2008, President Obama issued three executive orders aimed at government contractors: (1) rescinds E.O. 13201, which required contractor to post a notice of employees' right to refuse to join a union, and substitutes a notice of rights to organize under the National Labor Relations Act; (2) deems unallowable contractor costs to persuade employees to exercise or not exercise their right to organize and bargain collectively; and (3) requires successor contractors to provide a right of first refusal for service employees (as defined by the Service Contract Act) of a predecessor contractor for the same or similar services at the same location. All three executive orders will require regulations to be issued before they become effective and are more fully described in the following link: Obama Administration Issues Pro-Union Executive Orders.

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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....