From the monthly archives:

December 2008

Website Hook-Ups: if a Hook-Up Site Requires its Members to Represent That They are Over 18, is the Site Liable When a User is Busted for Having Sex With a Member Who is a Minor?

December 31, 2008

No. No, no, no, no, no. Only a lawyer with really bad judgment would file a suit alleging breach of contract, fraud, and related claims.  And, after losing in federal district court, appeal to the Sixth Circuit. If you really want to know the “legal” grounds for dismissal in this case, the decision is Doe

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Additional Amici Briefs Added to Rambus Group Page in FTC v. Rambus

December 30, 2008

The amici briefs of “Twenty Scholars,” Hynix, Micron and Nvidia, the CCIA and the American Antitrust Institute have been added to the Rambus group pageon scribd.com. Click here for a recent post discussing this appeal. Share This:TwitterFacebookStumbleUponDiggDelicious

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Judge Young Lays Down the Law on Earn-Outs

December 30, 2008

So, you have a great little business, and a large company wants to acquire it. The buyer argues that payment for your company should be determined by an “earn-out” — the buyer’s sales of your product will determine the purchase price (in whole or in part) based on an agreed-upon formula. “Perfectly normal,” your lawyer

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Amici Briefs Supporting Supreme Court Review in FTC v. Rambus

December 25, 2008

When old engineers (and old lawyers) sit around decades from now reminiscing about patent and antitrust law in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the name of Rambus is sure to come up.  The topic will not be the Rambus DRAM (or RDRAM) chip technologies, but rather the massive volume of litigation that Rambus set

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Creative Commons Celebrates Its Sixth Anniversary

December 20, 2008

My partners Andy Updegrove, Peter Moldave and I attended this celebration of the sixth anniversary of Creative Commons at Harvard the evening of Friday, December 13, 2008. We could have waited a few days and watched the event on YouTube, but then we would have missed the cold weather, the greatest ice storm in modern

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Really Judge Murphy. Really !?!

December 19, 2008

Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy won a $2 million libel verdict against the Boston Herald after the Herald incorrectly reported that he had said that a 14 year old female rape victim should “get over it.” Fair enough, but that was not the end of the story. The Herald appealed (ultimately losing), but during

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The Ten Weirdest Cases of 2008

December 18, 2008

Courtesy of the London Times online. Here is number 1, which I assume even under the English version of “top ten” lists is the “winner.” – What’s in a name? A nine-year-old girl involved in a custody hearing in New Zealand drew international attention for her name: “Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii”. The judge decided

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Sarah Richmond's Advice to Start-Up Companies

December 13, 2008

My partner Sarah Richmond has published an article in the December 12, 2008 issue of Mass High Tech titled Startup Founders: Success Requires Risk and Sacrifice – In this time of economic uncertainty, what can a founder of a startup do to increase his chances of attracting an outside investment and maximize the likelihood of

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David Moran on IRC 409A

December 13, 2008

My partner David Moran has written a Client Advisory on some of the issues associated with Internal Revenue Code §409A, which has a major impact on complex compensation arrangements. Supplemental executive retirement plans, voluntary deferral plans and equity plans are just a few of the compensation plans that are affected by this law. As the

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