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
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...
The Greater Boston Innovation Map
Xconomy has created a Google Map showing the location of each company they have covered in their first six months as a web magazine (125 so far, and counting). The pins are color-coded to indicate software, hardware, energy, life sciences, finance, media and nonprofit. Clicking on a pin on the large map embedded in the article (scroll to the bottom of the article) gives you the address of the company and the Xconomy stories about that company. Very cool ....
Go Directly to Jail
We're always warning our standards setting clients that U.S. antitrust laws are about more than just money - you can go to jail. After a while, it feels like these warnings lose their force. This recent press release from DOJ is a reminder that a violation of the antitrust laws is both a criminal and a civil violation: An independent consultant and two executives of Dunlop Oil & Marine Ltd., a manufacturer of marine hose located in Grimsby, United Kingdom, pleaded guilty today and have...
First Circuit Decision on Copyright Preemption
The First Circuit has published a complex decision involving copyright preemption of a state law claim for an accounting of profits between co-authors of a copyrighted work. The case, Cambridge Literary Properties, Ltd. v.W. GoebelPorzellanfabrik G.m.b.H & Co. KG (1st Cir. Dec. 13, 2007), has a tortured procedural history. In fact, the First Circuit issued an earlier decision in the case as far back as 2002. The case is quite complex, and involves the chain of copyright ownership in the...
Massachusetts Judges Reluctant to Enforce Noncompete Agreements
Further to my post below, commenting on whether the enforceability of noncompete agreements in Massachusetts has been a major factor in Silicon Valley's relatively greater success in attracting high tech start-ups, a review of recent Massachusetts noncompete cases shows how difficult it has become to enforce these agreements in Massachusetts. Judges appear to be leaning over backwards to deny preliminary injunction motions (which is where the real action lies in these cases). Here is a quick...
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