Max Olson is currently serving as the Chair of Morrison & Foerster’s Tokyo office Litigation Department. His practice includes all aspects of dispute resolution, with special emphasis on patent litigation, adversarial patent license negotiations and international arbitration. He has represented clients from various industries in resolving disputes involving patent infringement, trade secrets and unfair competition claims, business torts and contract issues. Mr. Olson has also worked on significant technology licensing matters for major corporate clients based in the United States and Japan.

Mr. Olson is a member of the State Bars of California and New York; the Litigation Section and Intellectual Property Law Section of the American Bar Association; the American Intellectual Property Law Association; the Los Angeles Intellectual Property Law Association; the Association of Business Trial Lawyers; and the Japan Business Association. He is also a registered gaikokuho-jimu-bengoshi and a member of the Daini Tokyo Bar Association. Mr. Olson is a frequent speaker and author on intellectual property litigation and international arbitration.

Mr. Olson was an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore before joining Morrison & Foerster in 1991. He became a partner in 1995 and served as the Managing Partner for the Los Angeles office from 2004 to 2006.

• Represented U.S. Olympic gymnast Paul Hamm before the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland in the successful defense of the gold medal won by Mr. Hamm in the 2004 Summer Olympics.
• Lead the firm’s litigation team on behalf of Sega Corporation in a global dispute over the rights to Sega’s intellectual property involving two actions in U.S. District Court, four appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, an arbitration before the Japan Commercial Arbitration Association, and an arbitration before JAMS in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
• Lead the firm’s patent licensing team on behalf of Konica Minolta in its patent cross-license negotiations with Xerox and Fuji Xerox in the field of business equipment technology.
• Lead the firm’s patent litigation team on behalf of Minolta in Pitney Bowes Inc. v. Minolta Co . (laser printing technology) and Sanyo in Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co. v. Sanyo Electric Co . (low temperature polysilicon thin film transistors).
• Represented Emulex in several patent infringement actions involving storage area network switching technology and represented Fujitsu in a patent infringement action involving notebook computers.