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Proposed Consolidation of Civilian Suspension and Debarment Offices

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 02.12.13

On February 7, Chairman Issa of the House Oversight Committee released a discussion draft of legislation that would consolidate more than forty civilian agency suspension and debarment offices and functions into one, centralized "Board of Civilian Suspension and Debarment" in GSA on October 1, 2014. The draft Stop Unworthy Spending Act, or SUSPEND Act, would also permit the newly formed board to enter into agreements to perform suspension and debarment activities for entities other than civilian agencies; consolidate the procurement and non-procurement regulations; require heightened public availability to proceedings and administrative agreements; and provide an expedited process for appropriate matters.


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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)....