Government Liable for $99 Million in Indemnification Under Government Contracts
Client Alert | 1 min read | 01.26.17
In Shell Oil Co. et al. v. U.S. (Jan. 6, 2017), the Court of Federal Claims held that the U.S. Government was liable for over $99 million in breach of contract damages when it “reneged on contractual promises” to indemnify several oil companies under a Taxes Clause for certain costs incurred as a result of environmental damage arising out of WWII-era contracts for the production of military aviation gas (see previous discussion here and here). The decision, which may encourage other contractors to pursue recovery under similar contract provisions such as “hold harmless” clauses in facilities contracts, and indemnification clauses authorized under Public Law 85-804, admonished the Government that the damages included “$30,991,111.02 in interest which the U.S. taxpayers could have avoided paying, if the Government had lived up to its obligations, instead of wasting years in litigation.”
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Client Alert | 2 min read | 11.14.25
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.
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