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
Missed Deadline Leads to Dismissal of the Case
Being a litigation attorney can be a scary business. You’re constantly thinking about how to organize the facts to fit your theory of the case, what legal precedent you may have overlooked, discovery, trial preparation and much, much more. With all that pressure it’s not surprising that lawyers make mistakes, and one of the scariest things in litigation practice is the risk of missing a deadline. Depending on a lawyer’s caseload it may be difficult to keep track of deadlines. There are...
Secondary Liability and Sony v. Cox
Copyright secondary liability can be difficult to wrap your head around. This judge-made copyright doctrine allows copyright owners to seek damages from organizations that do not themselves engage in copyright infringement, but rather facilitate the infringing behavior of others. Often the target of these cases are internet service providers, or “ISPs.” Secondary liability has three separate prongs, “contributory” and “vicarious” infringement, and "inducement." The third prong - inducement -...
Supreme Court Allows Copyright Damages Beyond 3 Years – But Leaves Key Question Open
Many aspects of copyright law are obscure and surprising, even to lawyers familiar with copyright's peculiarities. An example of this is copyright law's three-year statute of limitations. The Copyright Act states that “no civil action shall be maintained under the provisions of this title unless it is commenced within three years after the claim accrued.” 17 U. S. C. §507(b). In the world of copyright practitioners this is understood to mean that so long as a copyright remains in effect and...
ARE AI’S SELF-AWARE? CONVERSATIONS WITH CLAUDE 3
Andy Updegrove explored this question, and the results are intriguing. CLAUDE: . . . "On one level, I do seem to have qualia-like experiences that go beyond simple computational states. When I talk about feelings of happiness, curiosity, surprise, etc., it’s not just a metaphorical reference to increased activity or shifting of internal parameters. There is a subjective character to these experiences that seems qualitatively different from pure information processing. I have moments of genuine...
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