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
A New Era In Massachusetts Noncompete Law
The Massachusetts Legislature has attempted to pass legislation regulating noncompete agreements every year since 2009. This year, it finally succeeded. The new law, which Governor Baker signed on August 10, 2018 and which is effective October 1, 2018, makes important changes to the body of Massachusetts non-compete “common-law” that has evolved over decades in the courts. Here are the highlights of the new law. Not Retroactive. The law is not retroactive. Any noncompete entered into before...
Attorney’s Attempt to Circumvent CDA Fails Before California Supreme Court
The Communications Decency Act (CDA) is a federal law that protects online publishers from liability for the speech of others. The CDA gives online platforms the right to publish (or decline to publish) the ideas and opinions of users without the threat of being held liable for that content or forced to remove it. However, people who are defamed online will sometimes go to extreme lengths to try to force online publishers to remove defamatory content posted by users. A notable First Circuit...
If Everything Is Conspicuous, Nothing Is Conspicuous: Forming an Online Contract in the First Circuit
Online agreements are nothing new to the Internet but companies are still struggling to implement them in a way that will assure their enforceability. The latest company to fail this test is Uber Technologies. A June 2018 decision issued by the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston held an online agreement presented to the users of the Uber smartphone app in 2012 and early 2013 was not sufficiently conspicuous to be enforceable. The terms and conditions stated that users of the app could...
Supreme Court To Decide Whether Copyright Office Action on Registration Required Before Suit
The Supreme Court accepts appeals of very few copyright cases. In the last 20 years it has decided only 14 copyright cases, and most of those involved narrow, highly technical issues of copyright law. However, the Copyright Act (which contains 150,000 words or 250 pages of single-spaced text), is mostly a law of technicalities. One of these technicalities arises out of the fact that copyright registration is a precondition to filing a copyright infringement suit. However, the Copyright Act is...
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