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When It Sounds Too Good To Be True, It Usually Is

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 02.14.06

Many of us were surprised in 2000 when the Court of Federal Claims found that state income taxes paid by the individual owner of a Subchapter S corporation were allowable state income costs of the corporation on contracts performed by the corporation. It comes as no surprise that the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has reversed in Information Systems & Networks Corp. v. U.S. (Feb. 6, 2006), holding that, when state law follows federal law and imposes income taxes on the owners of Subchapter S corporations but not on the corporations themselves, the corporations are exempt from taxation and the tax paid by the individual owner is not an allowable cost of the corporation.

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Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.26.25

From ‘Second’ to ‘First:’ Federal Circuit Tackles Obvious Claim Errors

Patent claims must be clear and definite, as they set the boundaries of the patentee’s rights. Occasionally, however, claim language contains errors, such as typographical mistakes or incorrect numbering. Courts possess very limited authority to correct such errors. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has emphasized that judicial correction is appropriate only in rare circumstances, where (1) the error is evident from the face of the patent, and (2) the proposed correction is the sole reasonable interpretation in view of the claim language, specification, and prosecution history. See Group One, Ltd. v. Hallmark Cards, Inc., 407 F.3d 1297, 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005) and Novo Indus., L.P. v. Micro Molds Corp., 350 F.3d 1348, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2003)....