The Bid Protest Debrief
In Percipient.ai, Inc. v. United States, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, No. 2023-1970 (Decided Aug. 28, 2025), Percipient.ai challenged a task order award by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), alleging that the government violated 10 U.S.C. § 3453—a statutory preference for commercial items—by failing to fairly consider its AI platform. But Percipient had not submitted a bid, teamed with a prime, or otherwise participated in the procurement process. The core legal question became: Can a company that never submitted a proposal still be an “interested party” with standing to protest under 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b)(1)? A Federal Circuit panel initially said yes. The government appealed, and the court took the case up en banc, ultimately reversing course.