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
The Sum of All Knowledge
Technology. Do you know what Wikipedia is? Did you know that this open source encyclopedia covers 1,391,807 topics (in the English version, as of this writing)? That it may be (or soon become) the greatest collaborative knowledge gathering effort the world has ever known? That it is the 17th most popular site on the Internet, receiving 14,000 hits per second? That you can find a topic in Wikipedia by simply entering "wiki" at the end of a Google search? (e.g., Lost TV show wiki)? If you're...
Judge Gants Issues Decision on Waiver of Attorney-Client Privilege When Client Uses Password-Protected, Web-Based Email on a Company Computer
Litigation. Lawyers love to argue about attorney-client privilege. What could be juicier than to find out what your adversary in litigation said to his or her attorney, believing it to be covered by this privilege, a privilege that is so sacrosanct that the Supreme Court has ruled that it extends beyond the grave? Nevertheless, the attorney-client privilege can easily be lost or waived. For example, if the communication is revealed to a non-attorney third party, it risks waiver. The world of...
Lying About Your Education Can Get You Into Trouble In More Ways Than One
Litigation. In Pease v. Tyco Electronics Corp., decided on September 7, 2006, Massachusetts Federal District Court Judge Ponsor dismissed wrongful termination claims by a former employee of Tyco, based on evidence that the employee had lied to Tyco regarding his education (an MBA), and then modified and destroyed files on his computer to cover up his actions during the litigation. Among other things, this case shows how effective forensic examination of a computer can be in litigation, as well...
The "Work for Hire" Trap
Copyright. Sometimes it just seems like the law is full of traps. Miss a filing deadline, fail to make the proper objection or motion in court, leave the many forms of "magic language" out of an agreement - any of these, and countless more, can result in disaster. Our firm has recently seen two clients pay over $500,000 to buy their way out of what I call the "work for hire" trap. Both clients are software companies. In the first case, the client hired an independent contractor to develop its...
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