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
Ed Sheeran Should Settle “Lets Get It On”
It looks like the music copyright world is facing another high-profile infringement trial. This time the songs at issue are Marvin Gaye's 1973 "Get Lets it On" and Ed Sheeran's 2014 "Thinking Out Loud." On January 2, 2019, a federal judge denied Sheeran's motion for summary...
Litigation and Mental Models
Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions. Mark Twain I've been reading about mental models. Everyone has these, whether they are aware of them or not. Doctors, engineers, sports coaches, electricians, architects, they all have them. Gary Kasparov has them for chess. Warren Buffett for investing. Nancy Pelosi for legislative politics. Bill Belichick for football (Tony Romo too). And, whether they are aware of it or not, lawyers have them. Here's Charlie...
Will the Supreme Court Review Oracle v. Google? Please?
This extraordinary software copyright case -- Oracle v. Google -- has been in the courts for eight years, and I've blogged about it almost every step of the way. After winning twice in district court and losing two appeals before the Federal Circuit the case is on appeal to the Supreme Court for the second time. In its petition to the Court Google's "questions presented" are: Whether copyright protection extends to a software interface. Whether, as the jury found, Google's use of a software...
Redigi – World’s First Used Digital Marketplace – Fails “First Sale” at Second Circuit
I first posted on Capitol Records v. Redigi in March 2012 (Redigi Case Poses A Novel Copyright Question on the Resale of Digital Audio Files – Is “Digital First Sale Legal? Link), and posted a number of follow-up articles on this interesting case. Absent an appeal to the Supreme Court this long-running copyright case has finally come to an end with the Second Circuit's December 12, 2018...
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