Government Contracts at the High Court
Client Alert | 1 min read | 03.24.11
On February 28, 2011, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Sys., Inc., on the issue of whether a federal contractor's rights to an invention under the Bayh-Dole Act, 35 U.S.C. §§ 200-12, are trumped by a contractor-employee inventor's prior assignment to a third party of title to the same invention. As discussed in the March 14, 2011, BNA's Federal Contracts Report article "High Noon for Bayh-Dole?" by C&M's John McCarthy and Jon Baker, if upheld, contractors performing federally funded R&D work will need to be diligent to ensure that the assignments they receive from their employee-inventors do not take a back seat to any assignment agreements between their employee-inventors and third parties.
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Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.21.25
On November 7, 2025, in Thornton v. National Academy of Sciences, No. 25-cv-2155, 2025 WL 3123732 (D.D.C. Nov. 7, 2025), the District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a False Claims Act (FCA) retaliation complaint on the basis that the plaintiff’s allegations that he was fired after blowing the whistle on purported illegally discriminatory use of federal funding was not sufficient to support his FCA claim. This case appears to be one of the first filed, and subsequently dismissed, following Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s announcement of the creation of the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative on May 19, 2025, which “strongly encourages” private individuals to file lawsuits under the FCA relating to purportedly discriminatory and illegal use of federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in violation of Executive Order 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (Jan. 21, 2025). In this case, the court dismissed the FCA retaliation claim and rejected the argument that an organization could violate the FCA merely by “engaging in discriminatory conduct while conducting a federally funded study.” The analysis in Thornton could be a sign of how forthcoming arguments of retaliation based on reporting allegedly fraudulent DEI activity will be analyzed in the future.
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25
Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.19.25
