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GAO Rejects Rubber-Stamp LPTA Technical Evaluation

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 12.14.15

In a low-price-technically-acceptable procurement for IDIQ contracts for flame-resistant Army combat shirts, GAO sustained a challenge to the technical evaluation because the agency did not critically evaluate whether any of the three awardees' proposals actually met a particular solicitation requirement. GAO rejected the agency's nondescript finding that each awardee's proposal was "acceptable," and instead concluded that none of the awardees had provided a meaningful narrative addressing the requirement and that one, in fact, had included test data in its proposal showing that it did not meet the requirement.


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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....