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The Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003

Client Alert | 1 min read | 01.01.04

The President has signed into law the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003. The Act is a far-reaching recasting of the Medicare law, most notably in the creation of a new drug benefit. It also makes major changes to the Medicare coordinated care plan program, now to be called Medicare Advantage, radically restructures the Medicare intermediary contracting program, changes provider reimbursement, creates a new form of health savings account with potentially significant tax advantages, and changes many other aspects of the almost 40-year old program.

Click here to download Crowell & Moring's summary of the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 [doc].

Insights

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....