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
11th Circuit: Courts Lack Jurisdiction Over Declaratory Judgment Action for Noninfringement of Copyright, Where Defendant's Work Not Registered
The 11th Circuit has ruled on a somewhat obscure but interesting issue of federal jurisdiction in copyright cases. The Declaratory Judgment Act allows one who has been threatened with a suit to file suit first, and ask for a "declaration" of non-liability. In other words, the declaratory judgment makes one who fears becoming a defendant the procedural plaintiff. The roles of "plaintiff" and "defendant" are reversed, but the underlying issue remains the same. Declaratory judgment is simply a...
Using Justia.com and RSS to Follow a Case in Federal Court
Assume you're interested in Jones Day v. Blockshopper, pending in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Go to Justia.com and click on the link US District Courts' civil case filings. You can search for the docket of any federal district court case to find the case in Justia. Justia follows the Jones Day case here. If you click on that link and scroll down you'll see the docket entries for the case (the last entry is #52 as of my writing of this post). You can click on the...
Zotero Lawsuit Illustrates Conflict Between Open Source and Contractual IP Rights
The following is background that may be necessary for some readers to understand the issues raised in the Thompson v. Zotero lawsuit, discussed below. The Mozilla Firefox web browser (the second-most popular web browser, after Microsoft Internet Explorer) allows anyone with the talent and interest to develop "add-ons". An add-on is a computer functionality that is added to and integrated with the Firefox browser. The Firefox user downloads the add-on from the web, and the add-on is...
Supreme Court Will Decide Whether Ignorance is a Defense to the Federal Crime of Identity Theft
Today, the Supreme Court agreed to decide this issue: Whether an individual who used a false means of identification but did not know it belonged to another person can be convicted of “aggravated identity theft” under 18 U.S.C. 1028A(a)(1). The case involves an illegal alien who was prosecuted for use of false identity papers. It must be hard enough to be arrested as an illegal alien, but much worse to discovery that your punishment will not be deportation, but rather indictment and trial for...
Looking for a New Job? How About Federal IP Czar?
So, you're unhappy in your law firm job? Ready to move on to a job that has lots of responsibility but doesn't require hourly billing and client headaches? A job that puts you in close proximity to the President and his closest advisers? You'd like a job that provides security and good benefits? A federal pension to offset the losses in your 401K account? Well, you can thank President Bush for creating this exciting new job when he signed the "Prioritizing Resources and Organization for...
Google Makes the Case for its Advertising Deal With Yahoo
Here's an interesting web page from Google entitled Facts About the Yahoo-Google Advertising Agreement. There, Google "makes the case" for its proposed deal with Yahoo, which it describes as follows: On June 12, 2008, Yahoo! and Google announced an agreement that gives Yahoo! the ability to use Google's search and contextual advertising technology through its AdSense™ for Search and AdSense for Content advertising programs. Under the agreement, Yahoo! has the option to display Google ads...
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