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
The YouTube Discovery Order and ESI
"You have no privacy. Get over it." Scott McNealy ------------------------------ The Internet and the press are abuzz with the potential privacy issues raised by the federal court order requiring YouTube and Google to produce the YouTube "Logging database." This database is described in the court order as follows: [the database] contains, for each instance a video is watched, the unique "login ID" of the user who watched it, the time when the user started to watch the video, the internet...
Would You Like To Go On an Amphibious Sightseeing Tour?
Trademarks are meant to identify the source of products and services. Do you get confused between Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola? Between Payless Shoes and Comfort Shoes? Between Domino's Pizza and Papa John's Pizza? Probably not. "Cola," "shoes" and "pizza" are what trademark law classifies as "generic" terms - they describe the product, not its source or origin. If someone started selling a drink called "Rockstar Cola," Coke and Pepsi would have no legal grounds for objection. The "cola" part of...
Thoughts on the Art of Persuasion and the Defense in the Entwistle Case
Some thoughts on the recently concluded Entwistle murder trial in Massachusetts. A trial is the art of persuasion. Civil or criminal, jury or jury-waived, the same principles of persuasion apply. Generations of lawyers have spent their careers thinking about these principles, trying to understand, refine and apply them. The huge number of uncontrollable variables in a courtroom make trial persuasion an art rather than a science, but as in all competitive activities, even small advantages can...
More Legal Humor from Evan Schaeffer
We need more laughs in the legal profession, believe me. Lawyers take themselves way too seriously - and I'm putting that very politely. Evan Schaeffer of The Legal Underground is working to correct this with a long-running series of "advice" letters: advice to young lawyers, advice to federal judges, advices to partners, and so on. If you've worked in a large law firm (typically his target), you realize he has a talent for this. If you haven't you probably can't believe this stuff...
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