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
Schumpeter, Creative Destruction and the Golden Age of Capitalism
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the American economy was in crisis after years of stagflation. Mortgage rates were 17%, business loans carried 20% interest rates and productivity had collapsed. On April 21, 1980, Time magazine ran a cover story that asked the question: "Is Capitalism Working?" Today, the crisis that the American economic system faces is greater than that during the darkest days of stagflation. In this opinion piece, George M. Taber, former business editor of Time magazine...
What? Marshall, Texas?
It would be nice if lawyers didn't have to call their clients and tell them that their company had been sued for patent infringement in the Eastern District of Texas (EdTX). "Where? Where's that?" "What, you've never heard of Marshall, Texas?" you reply. "Never been to Tyler, Beaumont or Lufkin? Kind of quiet evenings after the sidewalks are rolled up, but your choice of BBQ rib joints is almost endless, and traffic isn't a problem." As I've written before EdTX has evolved into a hotbed of...
First Circuit Weighs in on the Law of Unjust Enrichment in Massachusetts
The terms "unjust enrichment," "restitution," "quasi-contract" and "constructive trust" cause the average lawyer to recoil with apprehension (although she doesn't show it, of course). We were forced to grapple with some of these ancient legal concepts in law school, but we quickly migrated to more modern legal principles, and although we may have remembered the terms (any lawyer worth his salt can throw around the terms unjust enrichment and restitution), the depth of knowledge of most lawyers...
Can I Say That? Based on the First Circuit’s Interpretation of a 1902 Law, Maybe Not
It's perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one, behind one's back, that are absolutely true" Oscar Wilde "Gossip needn't be false to be evil - there's a lot of truth that shouldn't be passed around." Frank A Clark "The defendant in an action for writing or for publishing a libel may introduce in evidence the truth of the matter contained in the publication charged as libellous; and the truth shall be a justification unless actual malice is proved" Entire...
Worthless Patents
Once you get a patent, it costs a lot to maintain it. For most categories of patentees, the maintenance fees after issuance are $980, $2,480 and $4,110 at 3.5 years, 7.5 and 11.5 years, respectively. If the fee is not paid, the patent is forfeited. Top patent blogger Dennis Crouch has an interesting set of statistics on his site, discussing the "fall-off" rate of maintenance fees paid at the end of each of these periods, beginning in July 1998. The non-renewal rate is significant. As Mr....
The Short and Simple Story of the Credit Crisis
As I showed in an earlier post, you don't need some Ivy League economics professor or former Federal Reserve member to explain the credit crisis. A cartoon will do. The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
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