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
Pocket Guide to Electronic Evidence, for Federal Judges
Judges need to keep learning too, and a major source of education for them is the Federal Judicial Center, an organization dedicated to judicial education. In fact, the FJC site is pretty cool. For example, here is a page that provides the biography of every federal judge (all courts, from District Court to Supreme Court), since 1789. Here is the bio of Judge Andrew A. Caffrey (deceased), who made me sweat quite a bit during this 37 day trial back in the early 1980s. In any event, the FJC...
So, What Does Chief Justice Roberts "Really" Think of the U.S. Patent Office?
Question by C. J. Roberts at oral argument in Quanta v. LG, earlier this week: we've had experience with the Patent Office where it tends to grant patents a lot more liberally than we would enforce under the patent law. (Transcript, p. 49, January 16, 2008). The issue in Quanta is whether the licensed sale of components used in a patented invention exhausts the patent owner's patent rights. The comment by Chief Justice Roberts was a reference to the Supreme Court's decision in KSR Int'l v....
David Byrne on the Evolution of Business Models in the Music Industry
David Byrne has published an interesting article in Wired on the various business models in the music industry, and how the Internet and digital music is changing those models and offering artists more opportunities. David Byrne's Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists - And Megastars Where there was one, now there are six: Six possible music distribution models, ranging from one in which the artist is pretty much hands-off to one where the artist does nearly everything. Not surprisingly,...
Amazon Caught in Common Settlement Trap
If you're in the middle of a trial, don't tell the judge that you've settled the case unless you absolutely, positively mean it. Amazon fell into this trap in its recent litigation with Basis Technology, a Massachusetts linguistics software company. On the third day of trial over a dispute arising out of a contractual relationship the parties informed the judge that the case had been settled. The judge ended the trial, but the settlement agreement that the parties then attempted to negotiate...
Life: What A Concept
Edge has posted as a free online publication the complete transcript of this summer's Edge event, Life: What a Concept! as a 43,000- word downloadable PDF book. This is a transcript of an event that took place at Eastover Farm in Bethlehem, CT on Monday, August 27th, 2007. Invited to address the topic "Life: What a Concept!" were Freeman Dyson, J. Craig Venter, George Church, Robert Shapiro, Dimitar Sasselov, and Seth Lloyd. These scientists are some of the most visionary scientific thinkers...
Lawyers Sanctioned $8.5 Million and Reported to State Bar Over Failure to Produce Electronic Evidence
When I was a new lawyer, working at Howrey in Washington, D.C, the firm 's client, Litton Industries, was sanctioned in the amount of $10 million for discovery misconduct - the failure to produce relevant documents during discovery. But for the sanction, Litton would have been entitled to an award of its costs and attorneys fees in the litigation, which it had won. I suspect, however, that Litton (and Howrey) took this with good graces - Litton had been awarded $277 million in damages. See...
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