Mass Law Blog
Intellectual property and business litigation, Massachusetts and nationallyWritten by humans
Lee Gesmer’s Mass Law Blog began in 2005, and contains almost 600 posts. The site initially focused on Massachusetts law, but today it follows business and intellectual property law nation-wide. The site is hosted by Gesmer Updegrove LLP, a law firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm represents startup and established companies in the areas of litigation, transactions (including financings, mergers and acquisitions), IP rights, taxation, employment law, standards consortia, business counseling and open source development projects and foundations. You can find a summary of the firm’s services here. To learn how Gesmer Updegrove can help you, contact: Lee Gesmer
Judge Fabricant's Preliminary Injunction Decision in HRH v. Sheppard
Attached below is Judge Judith Fabricant's lengthy decision in Hilb Rogal & Hobbs v. Sheppard, decided by Judge Fabricant in the Suffolk Business Litigation Session early this year. To my knowledge, this decision and order became publicly available only recently. This restrictive covenant case is interesting in one unusual respect: it involves what some lawyers like to call "employee raiding" - a perjorative term that one sometimes hears when a large group of employees leaves to join a new...
"Legally Dead" (attorney Hal Kant's Business Card)
From the SF Chronicle's obit of Hal Kant, aka "the Czar", long-time attorney for the Grateful Dead: When Ben & Jerry's ice cream produced a new flavor, Cherry Garcia, in the early '90s, McNally wrote in his book, the company did so without even discussing the idea with Garcia. Although Garcia was unconcerned when it was first brought to his attention - "At least they're not naming a motor oil after me, man," he said - Mr. Kant convinced him that the issue should be addressed. As recounted...
11th Circuit: Courts Lack Jurisdiction Over Declaratory Judgment Action for Noninfringement of Copyright, Where Defendant's Work Not Registered
The 11th Circuit has ruled on a somewhat obscure but interesting issue of federal jurisdiction in copyright cases. The Declaratory Judgment Act allows one who has been threatened with a suit to file suit first, and ask for a "declaration" of non-liability. In other words, the declaratory judgment makes one who fears becoming a defendant the procedural plaintiff. The roles of "plaintiff" and "defendant" are reversed, but the underlying issue remains the same. Declaratory judgment is simply a...
Using Justia.com and RSS to Follow a Case in Federal Court
Assume you're interested in Jones Day v. Blockshopper, pending in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Go to Justia.com and click on the link US District Courts' civil case filings. You can search for the docket of any federal district court case to find the case in Justia. Justia follows the Jones Day case here. If you click on that link and scroll down you'll see the docket entries for the case (the last entry is #52 as of my writing of this post). You can click on the...
This site is hosted by Gesmer Updegrove LLP, a technology law firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. You can find a summary of our services here. To learn how GU can help you, contact:
Lee Gesmer