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CFC Rejects Yet Another Government Argument to Extend CDA Statute of Limitations

Client Alert | 1 min read | 08.15.12

In yet another recent CDA statute of limitations decision, the Court of Federal Claims in Raytheon Company v. United States (July 26, 2012) denied the government's motion for reconsideration of its April 2012 decision holding that the CO's final decision was barred by the six-year SOL. In its motion, the government argued that it was entitled by FAR 31.201-2 to complete an audit before the SOL could begin to run, but the CFC rejected that argument, holding that "the statute of limitations begins to run when information that equates to knowledge of a potential claim becomes available to the Government" and that under this standard the government was "on notice" of a potential claim against the contractor based on information it obtained when it entered into an advance agreement with Raytheon in 1999 about the costs at issue.


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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....