Solicitor General Weighs in (Sort of) on Rule 9(b)
Client Alert | 1 min read | 02.27.14
In October 2013, the Supreme Court invited the Solicitor General to express the government's views on a pending petition for certiorari in U.S. ex rel. Nathan v. Takeda Pharmaceuticals, whose central issue concerns the requisite level of particularity required by Rule 9(b) in FCA cases. The Solicitor General has now asked the Supreme Court to deny the relator's petition, calling the case "not a suitable vehicle" for resolving the particularity question (because the lower court reached the correct result on other grounds), while expressing the government's view that "a qui tam complaint satisfies Rule 9(b) if it contains detailed allegations supporting a plausible inference that false claims were submitted to the government, even if the complaint does not identify specific requests for payment"(emphasis added).
Insights
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
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