Undocumented Clarifications Mean Undone State Award
Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 02.09.05
In a dramatic saga in the highly competitive market for state Medicaid IS contracts, a North Carolina administrative judge upheld a protest of the state’s award of a $180 million contract, holding that the state cannot base its award on clarifications that the awardee made during an unrecorded, undocumented meeting, and that the state improperly relaxed RFP technical requirements only for the awardee. The judge found the procurement so flawed that the state should start all over again, ruling for protester, EDS Information Services, which was represented jointly by Crowell & Moring and Smith, Anderson, Blount, Dorsett, Mitchell & Jernigan of North Carolina.
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
Microplastics Update: Regulatory and Litigation Developments in 2025
Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.13.25
