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
Final Thoughts On Google v. Oracle
At long last - after more than ten years, two trials and three appeals - the copyright lawsuit in Google v. Oracle has come to a close. In a surprise ending (given the emphasis on copyrightability for much of the case) on April 5, 2021 the Supreme Court held that Google's copying of 11,500 lines of code from Oracle's Java SE Application Programming Interface (the “Java API") and its use in Google’s Android mobile operating system was copyright fair use. A deeply disappointing ending for...
Governo Law: Mass SJC Clarifies Chapter 93A in Cases of Employee Misappropriation
Every Massachusetts lawyer that drafts a civil complaint wonders - or should wonder - “can I allege 93A in this case?” This law, M.G.L. c. 93A, is the Massachusetts unfair competition statute. It makes illegal “unfair and deceptive” acts and practices in the consumer and business contexts. The law is attractive to plaintiffs because it is one of the few state laws that provides the prospect of double or treble damages, as well as attorney’s fees. What is “unfair and deceptive”? There are many...
Arbitration War Stories (third) – Arbitration or Court?
In my first two posts on arbitration (here and here), I told a couple of war stories about what goes on behind the scenes in arbitration - what I called the “sausage factory.” To close this series, here are some general observations on arbitration. Should I include an arbitration clause in a contract? This can be a difficult question, with pros and cons on either side, and no obvious answer. And, since arbitration is typically in the “boilerplate” section of a contract it often receives little...
Arbitration War Stories (second) – Return to the Sausage Factory
The second arbitration anecdote I’d like to share (see my first “sausage factory” anecdote here) involved, once again, a 3-person arbitration panel. The case arose out of a manufacturer-distributor relationship. Here’s how the business worked. The high-priced hardware product at issue was sold to businesses via a national network of dealers, and the dealers often encountered price competition from competing manufacturers of this type of product. If a dealer lowered its price to meet the...
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