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Supreme Court to Tackle Implied Certification FCA Liability

Client Alert | 1 min read | 12.08.15

The Supreme Court has granted review in Universal Health Servs. v. U.S. ex rel. Escobar to decide whether (1) the implied certification theory of legal falsity under the False Claims Act is ever viable; and (2) whether, if it is, a contractor's reimbursement claim can be legally false under that theory if the provider failed to comply with a statute, regulation, or contractual provision that does not state that it is a condition of payment. As described in a recent article by C&M attorneys (available here), eight of the thirteen circuits have accepted the implied certification theory in some form, with only the Seventh Circuit rejecting the theory outright, but the approving circuits have articulated varying tests for its application.


Insights

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)....