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T4C, IDIQ Clauses Are No Safe Harbor Against Breach Damages

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 09.12.06

The AGBCA in Ardco, Inc. (Aug. 2, 2006), grounded the government's attempt to resort to the termination for convenience clause to avoid lost profit damages for breach when it wrecked the contractor's aircraft and caused it to lose revenue for part of the contract term. Nor did the government's argument fly that the lack of a contractual guarantee of any further revenue under an IDIQ contract defeats a lost profits claim, as the contractor is free to prove what work it likely would have received as the basis for its breach damages

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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....