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
Massachusetts Quick Links – October 2012
Oriental Financial Group, Inc. v. Cooperativa De Ahorro y Crédito Oriental (1st Cir. October 18, 2012) — In this case the First Circuit adopts the trademark law "progressive encroachment doctrine," joining the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 11th circuits. The progressive encroachment doctrine may be used as an offensive countermeasure to the affirmative defense of laches (delay in brining suit) where the trademark owner can show that "(1) during the period of the delay the plaintiff could reasonably...
Porn Movies, Copyright Trolls and Joinder (Yes, Joinder)
In Third Degree Films v. Does 1-47 (D. Mass. October 2, 2012), Judge William Young took on the "copyright trolls" in the adult film industry as best he could, holding that the plaintiff (a publisher of copyright-protected adult films that are being shared on the Internet) cannot join 47 "John Doe" defendants in a single action — it must instead file 47 individual suits. The issue here is part of a larger controversy, the "porn film copyright shakedown." The way this works is as follows....
Online Agreements – Easy To Get Right, Easy To Get Wrong
It's easy to create an enforceable online "click-wrap" agreement. But, as two recent cases remind us, it's also easy to do it wrong. Two recent cases are a reminder of this. In the first case, In re Zappos.com Security Breach Litigation, Zappos was sued in connection with a large data security breach. Responding to the predictable class action lawsuit, Zappos argued that the plaintiffs were required to arbitrate under Zappos' online user agreement. However, Zappos didn't have a 'user...
Yes, You Can Trademark the Color Red (on the sole of a shoe)
One of the thorniest issues in trademark law is whether and when trademark law will protect the use of a single color. After all, there are an infinite number of colors, and it would hardly be fair if one company could obtain a theoretically perpetual right to exclude others from using a color. So, the law makes it difficult to achieve this. Cases involving color marks are rare, but the Second Circuit released an important decision last week in Christian Louboutin S.A. v. Yves Saint Laurent...
After Judge Zobel Slams Tenenbaum, Eighth Circuit Whacks Thomas-Rasset
In late August Massachusetts U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel refused to remit $675,000 in statutory copyright damages that a jury awarded (long ago, pre-appeal) against Joel Tenenbaum, and held that the award did not violate Tenenbaum's constitutional rights under the Due Process Clause. (Blog post on Tenenbaum here). Yesterday, in a case involving essentially identical issues, the 8th Circuit affirmed a $220,000 jury verdict against Jamie Thomas-Rasset. Ms. Thomas-Rasset has had a rough...
TomTom Unable to Preempt Suit In Texas By Seeking Declaratory Judgment in Massachusetts
As I've written before, getting sued for patent infringement in Texas (often the Eastern District, or "EdTX") is generally viewed as undesirable by corporate America. Apparently seeking to avoid this unpleasantness, TomTom, Inc. filed a suit in Massachusetts, asking the court to declare that it did not infringe several patents held by Norman IP Holdings, Inc., over which Norman had already sued TomTom in EdTX. As its name suggets, and as best I can determine, Norman is a non-practicing entity...
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