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Post-Award Challenge to Solicitation Defect Upheld

Client Alert | 1 min read | 06.15.15

In Per Aarsleff A/S v. United States (June 5, 2015), the Court of Federal Claims sustained protests against the Air Force's award of a contract to operate, maintain, and support an air base in Greenland and enjoined performance by a Danish subsidiary of an American company when the court interpreted an eligibility requirement to prohibit award to non-Danish primes. The court rejected the Air Force's argument that the rule of Blue & Gold Fleet barred offerors from raising the solicitation defect post-award, because the ambiguity was latent and the Air Force had discovered it three months prior to award but had failed to correct it. 


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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....