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Even Short Contract Extensions Require Updated Service Contract Act Wages

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 11.03.04

Even a short (monthly or semi-monthly) extension of a contract subject to the Service Contract Act is considered a "new contract" requiring the government to incorporate new collective bargaining agreement wage and fringe benefit rates, the ASBCA held in Guardian Moving & Storage Co. (Sept. 23, 2004). The same reasoning--and rule--would require the incorporation of the latest available area wage determination where no collective bargaining agreement applied.

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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....