Value of Services Performed Must Be Considered in Fraud Case
Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 05.02.16
On April 28, the Fifth Circuit found in U.S. v. Harris that the government must take into account the value of the work performed in assessing damages in procurement fraud cases, even when sentencing individuals. In a perhaps unique fact pattern, the court upheld the conviction for 16 counts of wire fraud, but overturned the two-year prison sentence of an Army colonel because the government had calculated damages based on the full $1.3 million value of the contracts, rather than properly reducing that total for the value of the work performed.
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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.
Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.14.25
Microplastics Update: Regulatory and Litigation Developments in 2025
Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.13.25
