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
Led Zeppelin, Spirit and a Bustle at the Ninth Circuit
Update to this post: Copyright Office Backs Led Zeppelin In Ninth Circuit En Banc Appeal (link) The U.S. copyright community will look back on 2018 as an important year for music copyright law. Appellate decisions in music copyright cases are rare. However, this year we've seen two important opinions from the Ninth Circuit. In March the Ninth Circuit upheld a jury verdict that found that Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke’s 2012 recording of “Blurred Lines” infringes Marvin Gaye’s 1976...
Disney v. Redbox, Redux
Can Disney prevent a commercial business - in this case Redbox - from reselling Disney's movie download codes? At first the answer was "no." My earlier post on this case* highlighted the California federal district court's February 2018 opinion concluding that the language on Disney's box-top packages failed to create a contract that would prevent Redbox from purchasing and reselling Disney movie download codes. However, I predicted that "Likely, in the future Disney will correct its 'box-top...
A New Era In Massachusetts Noncompete Law
The Massachusetts Legislature has attempted to pass legislation regulating noncompete agreements every year since 2009. This year, it finally succeeded. The new law, which Governor Baker signed on August 10, 2018 and which is effective October 1, 2018, makes important changes to the body of Massachusetts non-compete “common-law” that has evolved over decades in the courts. Here are the highlights of the new law. Not Retroactive. The law is not retroactive. Any noncompete entered into before...
Attorney’s Attempt to Circumvent CDA Fails Before California Supreme Court
The Communications Decency Act (CDA) is a federal law that protects online publishers from liability for the speech of others. The CDA gives online platforms the right to publish (or decline to publish) the ideas and opinions of users without the threat of being held liable for that content or forced to remove it. However, people who are defamed online will sometimes go to extreme lengths to try to force online publishers to remove defamatory content posted by users. A notable First Circuit...
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