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
Supreme Court First-Sale Ruling Favors Gray Market Importers of Copyrighted Works, But Is Likely Only One Round in an Ongoing Battle Over the Right to Exclude Imported Works
Last week I published a post on the lawsuit challenging the "first-sale" doctrine in the context of digital files. On Tuesday the Supreme Court issued a decision holding that the first-sale doctrine applies to copies of copyrighted works lawfully made abroad. To understand the facts of this case picture this scenario. You are a student in Thailand, and you use English-language textbooks in your studies there. You see that the textbooks are not pirated copies—they are legal copies, authorized...
Copyright, Redigi and the Star Trek Transporter
Last week's New York Times article on digital resales, Imagining a Swap Meet for E-Books and Music, is a reminder that U.S. District Court Judge Richard Sullivan's decision on the pending cross-motions for summary judgment in Capitol v. Redigi can be expected quite soon. The motions were argued on October 5, 2012 (transcript), and six months is a fairly long time for a judge to decide motions of this sort. (For my earlier blog post on this case see Redigi Case Poses A Novel Copyright Question...
Apple v. Samsung: One Angry Man?
Juror #8: It's always difficult to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And wherever you run into it, prejudice always obscures the truth. 12 Angry Men In this business you got fifty ways you're gonna screw up. If you think of twenty-five of them, then you're a genius... and you ain't no genius. Body Heat ("G"-rated version of quote from the movie) ____________________ If you've noticed a lawyer with a paranoid, haunted look, and you're wondering why, the answer may be that the...
You Want to Blog for Huffpost? Well, I Have to Warn You – We’re Pretty Darn Selective!
A lot of people blogged for The Huffington Post for free between 2005 and 2011. But after Huffpost was sold to AOL for $315 million in 2011, they had second thoughts about their generosity. They filed a class action seeking compensation for their work based on claims of unjust enrichment and deceptive business practices, seeking one-third of that money for the bloggers. The trial court, and now the Second Circuit, rejected their claims. As the Second Circuit stated early this week in Tasini v....
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