Gesmer Updegrove LLP

Mariposa makes hand-made, original gifts for the home and table. Visit their website and you'll see what makes a Mariposa branded piece unique.  You'll also learn that “all Mariposa’s designers, including John Updike’s son, Michael Updike, are artists: painters and sculptors who view each piece they make as art, not a product.”

What began as an enterprise of one for founder Livia Cowan, has emerged as a 30-employee, multi-million dollar operation—still based in Manchester, Massachusetts, but selling Mariposa gifts and keepsakes through dealers all over the map. Sadly, success leads to imitation, some of it unflattering in the form of Mariposa knockoffs—a common problem for coveted brands globally. Small world, indeed. 

Gesmer Updegrove has worked to protect the Mariposa brand for ten years with litigation or the threat of the same—taking on manufacturers as far-reaching as India and large box retailers closer to home in the U.S. Gesmer litigation partner Joe Laferrera says “the business goal of our work for the company is not to earn a revenue stream from Mariposa-inspired pieces (or outright copies),  it’s to keep infringers off the market and prevent the dilution of the name and quality of the collections. It tracks right back to the notion that this is artisans work.”

Litigation isn’t the only thing Gesmer Updegrove handles for Mariposa. As Mariposa expanded the operation, the firm has crafted employment agreements for artists and employees alike—all to preserve the spirit that a sense of family and craftsmanship stands behind everything Mariposa offers to market.