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Agencies Abuse Sole-Source Process

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 02.20.13

On the heels of the CFC in Innovation Dev. Enters. of Am., Inc. v. U.S. (Jan. 29, 2013) finding that the Air Force had done zero advance planning before improperly justifying retention of the multiyear incumbent on a sole-source basis, the GAO issued its study faulting DOD more generally. In reviewing eight large sole-source awards, GAO found that DOD in six of them had failed to adhere to the recently tightened FAR requirements for sole-source buys.


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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....