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No Right Of Cross-Appeal From Favorable Decisions

Client Alert | 1 min read | 02.22.06

In Nautilus Group, Inc. v. ICON Health and Fitness, Inc., (No. 05-1577; February 15, 2006), the Federal Circuit dismisses ICON's conditional cross-appeal from the district court's claim construction order. Nautilus appealed an unfavorable district court's final judgment on ICON's counterclaim for declaratory judgment of non-infringement. ICON then filed a conditional cross-appeal seeking review of certain claim construction rulings in the event of a reversal of the judgment of non-infringement. In dismissing ICON's cross-appeal, the Federal Circuit reiterates the principle that a “party has no right of cross-appeal from a decision in its favor.” A party who prevails on non-infringement has no right to introduce new arguments or challenge a claim construction, but may instead “assert alternative ground in the record for affirming the judgment.”

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Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.12.26

DOJ Guidance Backs Away From Disparate Impact Liability

On June 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a formal opinion concluding that the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s (EEOC) existing interpretations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) disparate-impact liability, including the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP), are unconstitutional. According to the opinion, EEOC’s prior interpretations contemplate liability based on disproportionately adverse effects alone, without regard to an employer’s likely intent, rather than treating disparate impact as an evidentiary mechanism to “smoke out” intentional discrimination. DOJ found that this approach functions as a “qualified racial-proportionality mandate” that places “a racial thumb on the scales, often requiring employers to evaluate the racial outcomes of their policies, and to make decisions based on (because of) those racial outcomes.” The opinion fulfills one mandate of Executive Order 14281, which rejected disparate-impact liability insofar as it “creates a near insurmountable presumption that unlawful discrimination exists wherever there are any differences in outcomes among different [demographic groups].”...

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