A firm protested the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) rejection of its bid and subsequent contract award for laser printers, contending that USDA should have considered its descriptive literature in evaluating its bid. GAO held that USDA properly rejected the protester's bid as nonresponsive, since the protester failed to show that its product conformed to the required specifications. Accordingl...

PROCUREMENT - Sealed Bidding - Bids - Responsiveness - Descriptive literature - Adequacy DIGEST: Where an invitation for bids required descriptive literature sufficient to determine whether the offered item conformed to the technical specifications and bidders were advised that failure to do so would require rejection of their bids. Section C of the IFB listed 19 "mandatory specifications" that an...